Vegspiration

 I was out for my morning run (which are getting rarer and rarer these days) and I couldn't help but snap a sneaky couple of shots of my neighbours vegetable garden. He was mucking out his chickens in the opposite field, which he has also embarrassed me with by having a free range flock of about 20 compared to my two. The shots were a bit hurried and shaky as I didn't want him to see what I was doing, as then he would think I was a total lunatic, why would his new neighbour be taking photo's of his vegetable patch after all?
 I am extremely jealous, beans, leaks, tomato's, canes & mesh, everything organised and well thought out, basically the complete opposite to my current situation. This inspired a total garden renovation on my return home, the chief taster was only just emerging from bed but he was immediately enlisted to start digging me another patch....

Insect Eggs

When digging up the front garden at the weekend, I kept coming across these small clumps of lilac coloured balls, they look like insect eggs of some sort but have no idea what, anyone know?

Chickens & too much rain

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front, the miserable but much needed rain has dampened my mood along with my garden. I have two eager new recruits though, Heather & Shirley, aka 'my girls' who have been ruining the lawn for the best part of a month, Chief Taster disapproves of their mess but I hear him talking to them when he thinks no one is listening so he can't dislike them as much as he makes out. They won't be ready to start laying till around August but I'm content to watch them until then and be amused by their nosey personalities and general silliness.

 I have dug myself up a small vegetable patch, rather apprehensively as the house is still not legally ours and the current owner probably wouldn't be too keen on it, I'm yet to plant anything in it as after my green house disaster I'm still trying to work out what most seedlings are.
It is my birthday tomorrow, and we are away to Bradford on Avon near Bath and will be visiting some of the beautiful gardens up there. I'm not even hoping for sun, just not for torrential rain!

Disaster

The night after I planted my seeds, there seemed to be what I can only describe as a hurricane here in Hertfordshire and when I came down in the morning, disaster had struck and my mini greenhouse was on the floor. The disappointment I felt was immense, I have tried to salvage what I can, but it's not looking good. The worst thing is that we are away this weekend and as I work and am out of the house for twelve hours a day I can't even give it all another go until the following weekend, AND the sun is shining like a summer's day today, it's very annoying.

My Kitchen, the Potting Shed

Today, I finally planted some seeds. As the garden shed is still full of crap from the previous occupier the kitchen seemed like an excellent place to open a sack of compost. The Chief taster hated it, he is very tidy and kept poking his head round the door to look at me disapprovingly and tell me off for going out in the raining garden with bare feet, which I then kept walking back into the kitchen making a fair bit of sludge.

 However, I got planted snugly into my mini greenhouse, tomatoes, leeks, beetroot, spinach, carrots, broccoli, chili's and some ornamental Japanese cabbages, just for show. 

 Now I just have to remember to water them and hope that I don't kill them this year.

My New House

After much lugging of furniture, lot's of tea and a few sticky moments in the hired van we moved into our new home this weekend. The garden is really the main focus of the house, anyone that walks in is instantly drawn to the beautiful views out of the back doors, past the garden you can see nothing but miles of fields and a tiny village church and as we were treated to snow this weekend, I was like a child at Christmas. The Chief Taster had to be stirred awake with a cup of tea and the smell of frying bacon but it didn't take long until we were out in it and down to the local shop to stock up on some wood for the fire.

Unfortunately there is nothing I can do garden wise other than look at it and read books about growing vegetables in the hope that I will be better prepared this year.

My New Garden!

I'm moving!

In two weeks!

I am going to have my very own garden!

None of this borrowing the father in-laws garden, no more broken plastic mini greenhouses shoved in a corner of the garden out of the way, I can have my own greenhouse, I can plant veggie's in the sunniest spot of the garden no matter how messy it looks, and have unruly blackberry and strawberry plants everywhere if I like, and a pond, and even chickens!!!

 This of course, is in the hope that I actually manage to grow these plants. Last year was a bit disasterous, but I learnt a lot. This year my tomato's will be in early, my watering will be frequent and I won't count my chickens too early, literally.

This is the view from my new back garden, I can't wait to get out of London and into the country, the commute into town for work is going to be  royal pain in the arse, but surely it will be worth it to wake up and see this every morning.

P.S. sorry that the photo's are not the best quality, I snapped these on my phone.