Gardening in the Forest of Dean

Well, not yet but hopefully by the summer

Garden Progress so far

Garden when we moved here

We moved into this little cottage in July last year. As you can see from the picture a good third of the garden was down to a lawn. As we are retired that was the last thing we wanted. We have dug up the lawn and created some small deep beds for vegetables. Despite the late start we did manage to grow runner beans, tomatoes sprouts cauliflowers leeks and cabbages. We are just coming to the end of these.

In addition to the deep beds I have created 2 compost heaps. The 1st uses nothing but the odd bit of urine as a starter and the 2nd I have been trialling compost activator from Soilfixer.

I have been impressed with this product as the heap is looking far better than the 1st one. Today I have turned both heaps to get them started again after all the cold weather and frosts.

Stage 2

The rickety old shed is being replaced in the next month with a new larger one so we can store our logs and use it as a potting shed. We will be erecting a 3′ picket fence on the front of the small wall that divides the top section from the patio. One of last years trials particularly impressed us. That was the climbing french beans. They looked gorgeous with lovely blue flowers and purple pods that were delicious. We will certainly plant some more of these and to make it look nice we will be growing them this year twined in the new picket fence.

I have bought Arran Pilot seed potatoes and am trying some Homeguard from Dundry Nursery in Gloucester. I’ll be planting a couple of beds with these as well as in potato bags and containers.

Every post in the garden will have hanging baskets with  a mixture of flowers and plants, hence the “hanging garden” title. I see no reason at all why the vegetable garden shouldn’t look nice.

I’ll be blogging about gardening much more regularly now and I will be posting some video blogs as well. Comments welcomed