Vegetable Garden Progress

Since we moved in we’ve been steadily getting the vegetable garden clear. This has been high-up on our priority list as we want to be ready to get planting as soon as the weather warms up. We’ve made good progress so far and spent the day out there today in the winter sunshine. A beautiful albeit rather chilly day.

This first photo was taken when we moved in, back in October. We’d just had a hot dry period so everything was looking rather barren and brown. The photo shows just how overgrown it was and it’s only now, 4 months later we feel we’re are making headway. The first picture also shows the greenhouse which has now been removed and will be rebuilt on the existing dwarf wall at the end of the month. It was unfortuately not possible to save the original structure as it was not safe (the bowing roof is visible in the shot). We will write a separate post as it is rebuilt.

Back in October…

Progress!

We currently have a growing mound of compostable matter (see photo below) that really needs to be placed into a proper composting system. We’ve purchased a large New Zealand style wooden system which consists of three 4ft slatted bays. It should hopefully be big enough however, we haven’t yet built it, or decided upon it’s exact location. it looks like a bit of a beast to construct so will be a full days job for us..We are also looking into the best way to use all the grass cuttings we will produce.

This afternoon we started to clear out the rather huge and ramshackle fruit-cage. It’s probably too large for what we need, but for this year we’re going to keep it as it is and see what grows. We have pruned back all the raspberries which are the predominant fruit along with a few currant bushes and a sad looking strawberry patch we discovered underfoot. In the future we may try to reclaim some of the space and rebuild a smaller cage.

Oh, and having a pigeon fly into the cage, getting stuck inside, then being chased by the puppy is not very helpful!. Thankfully teamwork prevailed and we managed to shoo out the pigeon before the dog managed to catch it much to her disappointment!

We also cut back an unwieldy rose bush, and trimmed and picked up a lot of branches from around the grounds. Some of the larger branches are too much for the compost heap so I think we’re going to have to start having semi-regular bonfires. Not something we really like the idea of, but I think it’s going to be the only way to manage everything.