Feeling distinctly ‘off’, today. Not exactly ill, and my back is not too sore, just feeling low. Not wanting to do anything. I guess you’d call it a sofa day. So i decided to do my garden plan for 2008.. hopes n dreams always make me feel better. :)

Garden Plan, 2008

I’ve put some info in the “garden” link at the top, but i also want to do a post here. Obviously, there’s a lot of changes. (see the garden link at the top for last year’s plan, and how it looks now). i plan to string netting up along the fence, and grow a variety of flowering climbers like sweet peas along the fence, as much as possible. Because the trees grow quite close to the fence, finding shade loving climbers within my budget may be awkward. Still, i’ll do my best. In the long run i’d like to replace the annual sweetpea type with perennials like ivy, so there’s something there in winter too, but we’ll see. that’s the red squiggle around the fence, anyway.

In the side garden, there’s a long path going down the middle of the garden made out of grass. I’ll almost certainly be buying a box of grass seed, to help the grass recover some, especially where the back door leads to the back gate (I plan to put some paving stones down to help minimise wear and tear along there). A lawnmower is on the cards as well, i do realise from last year that using a trimmer is exhausting and just isn’t going to do the job. i hope to grow other flowers as well, my old favorites, cornflowers, nigella, aquilegia, ipomea, and some new ones – poppies, foxgloves, sunflowers, and allium christophii (which gives lovely big heads that are ideal for dried arrangements). these, with the exception of the sweetpeas which will go around the hedge (and i hope to get some more ultra tall canes to make a sweet pea wigwam) will go where i can find room, but mostly underneath the trees/washing line, so that they can be viewed from the house. a full list, including varieties, is provided below.

Back to the side garden!! I plan to grow mostly spuds here. I did a trial run with some ordinary eating spuds that had chitted quite on their own last year, and i was amazed at how well they did, despite the dreadful weather and lack of care from me. Although spuds are cheap enough in the shops that i initially swore i wouldn’t grow them, i had been rethinking this since the success of the spuds last year, and a programme on the box changed my mind completely at christmas: the hairy bikers, who went to visit a spud grower who grew some unusual varities, including purple potatoes!! anyone who knows me knows i love purple so.. spuds have made it onto my growing list. Or they will, as soon as i get some.

as you come up the side garden towards the bit that’s overseen by the windows, you start to increase the amount of sunlight the ground gets. In this area i plan to plan onions, leeks, celeriacs, cauliflower, kale, sweetcorn, squash and courgettes.

In last year’s bed 3, i plan to turn that completely over to fruit. I hope to get some raspberry canes to go along the back, then the front of the bed will have strawberry plants from last year, in a permanent home. I may well grow some more strawberry plants in a growbag, just to replace them next year, so that we have a continuous supply of fruit. Everyone says with strawberries not to expect a lot of fruit the first year, so since these are last year’s plants, i hope to get lots of strawberries this year. I’ve even got straw, ready to mulch them!

Bed One will be turned almost completely over to pulses. a couple of cucumber plants will be at one end, some garlic at the other, a wigwam in the middle with climbing beans on, and dwarf beans filling in the gaps. However, i may switch things around – we’ll see. the problem with doing it this way of course is that the cucumber plants would be in the shade of the wigwam. hm. have to think about that one. I’m also thinking about doing mixes of peas/beans on the wigwams – i don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. any thoughts, anyone?

Bed two will be turned over, again, almost completely to tomatoes. the first year i grew tomatoes i grew them in the ground, but – inexperience showing – i made mistakes, like sowing them too late in the season, not taking out the sideshoots, and all this meant that the majority of my crop was late and still green. Last year i sowed much earlier, and pinched out the side shoots religiously (well, religiously once i realised the b**** things grow back!!) and as a result got ripe tomatoes earlier, and i was pleased with that. However, i felt they struggled in the growbags, so i want to return to growing them in the soil this year. I’ve a wide selection of tomato plants so i shall probably be growing one or two of each type. some will also be grown in pots (for example, tumbling tom in a hanging basket) but they’re suited to that anyway. At the end of Bed 3 will be a wigwam turned over to either sweetpeas or beans. I’m not sure yet. I felt the wigwams last year were a waste of space, so either the beans/peas do better this year, and i continue using them next year, or they come out.

Courgettes will be grown in the bit between the flower garden and the side garden. Courgettes, as we all know, need *room*, and although the bed itself will be quite narrow, the actual space they’ll have to grow above ground is considerably larger, and i hope they’ll do well there. I also have a climbing courgette variety, which i hope to grow in a big pot outside the back door, up a trellis attached to the wall. if that is a success then i may cut down on the other types of courgette in 2009, simply because they are such space hoggers.

Salad veg will be grown, but i plan to grow them in pots, simply to try to keep them away from slugs. I found the little b******s completely decimated any of my salad leaves last year, even ones that i had started in the greenhouse in a lootube and replanted on (to minimise root disturbance, which they notoriously hate). they’d be planted out and within a couple of days they’d be gone. They’ll be situated around the outside of the greenhouse and the back door, in amongst the herbs.

I want to expand the herb collection a lot this year, in pots. I hope to purchase more large pots as well, when they’re £5 a pop they do limit you in terms of what you can buy. However, i buy herbs like coriander (cilantro) every week, at 50p a bunch, which goes off very very quickly, and periodically buy dill and parsley, so i figure that growing these and other herbs would save me money. I’d especially like to grow basil as well – its a very easy herb to grow, and it tastes fabby in salads. If the growing-salad-in-pots and nematode stuff that’s on order works and i actually *get* salad stuff this year, then i hope to be providing us with a side salad to our meals most nights this summer, which would be a great healthwise.

Altogether i want a garden that provides me with as much food as possible, that looks good, smells good, and is a haven for me, Michiel and Jess. I just hope that the weather and the local kids co-operate with that!!!

Full list of what i’m growing together with links behind the cut:

List of Flower varieties (links do not necessarily go to where i got them from):

Allium Christophii
Sweetpeas – unknown varieties harvested from last year’s plants
Sweetpea – cupani
Sweetpea – tall, mixed
Sweetpea – painted lady
Aquilegia – Biedermeier Mixed, and a white 2005 seed variety from mom’s garden
Cornflower – tall double blue, (link isn’t exactly the same, but very similar) and Polka Dot variety
white poppy (from mom’s garden)
white foxglove (from mom’s garden)
Sunflower
stock – night scented
Ipomea – morning glory
Nigella – persian jewels and last year’s seeds
Wilko cottage garden annuals mix, and Thompson & Morgan simplicity private blend

(I may buy more seeds from shops. especially sweet peas. i adore sweetpeas.)

List of Vegetable varities (links to do not necessarily go to where i got them from):

Rocket
Corn salad
Mixed varieties of lettuce leaves
Swiss chard – both plain green and bright lights
Spinach – Medania and Hector, F1
Spinach Beet – perpetual spinach (link is not the same, but close to)

Courgette – one ball, Black forest, de nice a fruit rond, kojak, gold rush, (scroll down to see them)
Aubergine – moneymaker, mini bambino
Pepper – sweet rainbow mixed, sweet colour spectrum
Chilli Pepper – tabasco, Meek & Mild, pinocchio’s nose, cayenne,
Tomato – Moneymaker, Minibel, Tumbling tom, Costoluto Fiorentino, Gardener’s delight, Golden Sunrise, Red Pear, San Marzano 2, Tigerella
Cucumber – Venlo “pickling” cucumber, crystal apple, Telegraph improved
Squash – Butternut Hawk, Butternut Harrier, Winter Festival

Sweetcorn – miracle
Pea – sugarsnap, Asparagus, Douce Provence
Bean, climbing – Borlotta di fuoco, Blue lake,
Bean, dwarf french – Borlotto, Kitchen Favorite, Kinghorn Wax, The Prince

Beetroot – chioggia
Celeriac – alabaster 3
Carrot – Autumn King, Touchon,

Asparagus – Martha Washington
kale – jersey walking stick, Starbor
Cauliflower – snowball
Broccoli – purple sprouting

Leek – Autumn Giant, Musselburgh
Onion – rijnsburger
spring onion – white lisbon
shallots – golden gourmet (pickling onion)
Garlic – solent wight

List of Herbs:

Coriander
Thyme
Chives
Parsley – both curly and flatleaf
Basil – sweet and thai
Borage

List of Fruit:

Melon – honeydew (seed taken from fruit from the supermarket and i might have a shot at growing it in the greenhouse!)
Strawberries
redcurrant
blackcurrant

Still to buy:

Herbs – lemon verbena, dill, chervil, tarragon, fennel, lovage, lemon balm, mint, rosemary, sorrel, sage

Veg – radishes, potatos, peas? beetroot – boltardy or golden burpees

Fruit – raspberries or loganberries.