A year ago....

I have been wondering why the garden isn't so demanding this year and then it dawned on me, this is the first year since 2008 that we haven't been establishing a new vegetable garden.

Last December saw us undertaking the most ambitious project which was converting the last remaining yard space into a vegetable garden. It was a mammoth task as trees needed to be cleared through to the roots, lawn lifted, raised beds built, compost dug in, pond made and plants to sow. At the end of this time period it looked like this:



Today I took a photo of it at almost the same angle and it looks like this:



Here is a bed by bed description....



This is the second bed form the gate which holds salad leaves, coriander and radish.
I forgot to photo the first bed but that has new corn seedlings and winters brusell sprouts.



The second bed holds cucumbers in the front where the climbing poles are. Around the edge of the bed, not interfering with the cuucmber seedlings, I planted quick growing salads like rocket, watercress and coriander. These will be used up by the time the cucumbers are climbing.

Behind the trellis which you cannot see are marrow plants and behind that my gorgeous asparagus in all its summer glory.



The next bed holds our heirloom tomatoes like Black Prince. Behind them is the second asparagus bed.



The last bed in this area has some left over cabbages which we will still eat and in front - carrots. I have never done well with carrots as I feed the soil too much. But I picked up a hint from another gardener who grows long gorgeous ones that she plants hers after brassicas. So that is why they are here.

From this last bed is a rather unruly area where we are growing our corn. The photo is a little overexposed so its hard to see, but we have about 100 corn plants in different stages of growth from knee high to shoulder high. We used our own compost in this area which, we realised, held lots and lots and lots of tomato seeds.



The tomatoes have sprung up amongst the corn and whilst we removed many of them I did leave a few to grow alongside. This area also holds our blackberry bramble whose berries we are eating everyday now with our breakfast or in smoothies. Hanging up against the wall are some strawberries and we even have a few stray sunflowers to boot!