Gardening

[Mr.P]

The German chamomile I started from seed is way more successful than I expected and it's actually invading various parts of the yard. This is one I would actually love to distill just to see the blue azulene rich oil accumulate. One of the first things I distilled in my youth was a big batch of dried German chamomile and it was a real treat to see that blue oil pooling up.

 

[Sproaty]

I've been at this gardening malarkey now since mid/late Feb and surprisingly my enthusiasm hasn't died off! I think I'm at the point of maintenance now and most of the hard work is done. I'm really enjoying watching things grow.
I have loads of stuff growing, 8 potato bags (maybe like 25 planted amongst them), about 15 in the ground, 9 tomatoes planted, some in the greenhouse, chillis, beans, peas, zuchinni, carrots, parsnip, beetroot, spinach. It's going pretty well for never having grown before!
I've installed a pond, got a wildlife/compost area, loads of flowers
Pics in random order and generally from the past few weeks. I'm thinking I might get 40kg of potatoes overall 🤣🤣

 

[Sproaty]

Planted a block of 15 sweetcorn & crown prince squash on both sides 🙂

 

[Sproaty]

Pond area is looking proper now - that's a bunch of pruned apple tree suckers in the bottom left that I need to move. Also probably get rid of that bin in the corner...

Basically the growing area ends just to the left of the pic here so I'm letting this area get overgrown and wild, hoping to bring in frogs and just be a wildlife area. I sowed a lot of wildflower & pollinators besides the fence line (and that sunflower at the end!) and trying to establish a good ecosystem. Good insects coming in to eat any pests. Frogs to eat slugs.
One thing this gardening malarkey has taught me is a huge respect and appreciation of nature. The synergy. The growth. The patience.
It's been pretty life changing in so many ways that I'd end up writing paragraphs about, and it's shown me so much about myself... and I did not expect this when I began!

This sweet pea was planted first and I was trying to get it to climb that stick you can see to the right. I spent time over weeks to get it to tie its tendrils to it but nope, it'd stay for a bit and flop over. I tried to get it to stay by sorta jamming its branches against the stick, but nope.
Then I planted the sunflower which has shot up and just one day, the sweet pea grabbed onto it and started climbing that, totally ignoring the stick 🤣

Think this was mid May or so, there's a sunflower directly in front of me here which got crushed when my neighbour's kid kicked a football over the fence 🙁

 

[Mr.P]

This little shrub is looking good!

 

[DubOudh]

Sowed a small wildflower patch a while back.

 

[Mr.P]

Sowed a small wildflower patch a while back.

I am sure the local pollinating insects appreciate you 🙂

 

[Sproaty]

that's one beautiful cat! I like the Japanese garden aesthetic too. That's really cool, given me an inspiration for making more use of my garden. It's really long but quite narrow and the grass is very overgrown currently as I've not bothered mowing it. Next year I will get more foodstuffs growing in my garden!

ha....only took me 3yrs to action!