Thursday 27 August 2015

Horticultural that's me

It is more than thirty years since I did any real horticultural stuff. I worked for about six years in a nursery/garden centre and my boss was determined that all his staff should be able to talk to customers about their garden needs. He was adamant that we should NEVER try to sell something to a customer that wouldn't work in their garden so we simply had to know about all the stuff we grew and sold. We took cuttings, grew seedlings, grafted fruit trees and in the winter we potted up to 8,000 rose bushes that came in bare root from Holland. In a huge shed with the doors always open for the tractors and no heating - the joys of youth eh. When we moved here the garden is so tiny it was a five minute job to weed and sweep once a month. Now, after all this time I have planted runner beans and tomatoes, strawberries and herbs. Take a look.
My herb garden. I have Sage, Rosemary, Oregano, Chives and Lemon Verbena.
As they grow I cut them and put the excess into containers in the freezer. They are easy to chop when frozen, you just crush the little bag and throw them into the food - without the little bag of course.
I use the Lemon Verbena as a table centre because it smells so lovely

I bought four strawberry plants and had loads of fruit. Then they started throwing runners out so I had to Google exactly how to deal with them. This is the result. I have ten little pots that I hope will take and the bigger one you can just see has a runner that has already filled the small pot with root so I had to pot it on.

There are six bean plants here. So far we have had more than 2 kilos of beans and there are loads still forming and growing.

Three tomato plants. The middle one is Sungold, an F1 hybrid the fruit was quite small but I suspect that was  because of the lack of root space. Next year... The teeny tiny one on the right is a patio tomato. The fruit was pink and actually quite tasteless. the one on the left was supposed to be the sort that doesn't throw sideshoots, they lied. It has the biggest fruit and have taken the longest to ripen so I can't tell you what they taste like - yet.

This is the flower bed under the Wisteria. I have lavender, two plants that were on the cheap table in a garden centre. They were the remnants of the previous season's plants and looked as though they were going to die soon. At 50pence a plant I bought that four that were there. Two are under my washing line so that my washing smells faintly of lavender when I bring it in and the other two are where they get brushed against as I "garden". There are also Fuchsia Jasmin, Clematis (the slugs love it) and something else that begins with C but I can't remember it today.

2 comments:

Sian said...

This is a lovely post..looking at all the greenery is a cure for a very very grey day here.

Barbara Eads said...

Everything is looking good! I especially love your little garden under the wisteria!