I have always enjoyed gardening from an early age as my parents always kept a flower garden veggie plot and soft fruit garden. mmmm also why I love my fruit and veggies.
I have 3 gardens The back is still a building site but it will be our sensory garden with waterfall at some point. It does contain my small greenhouse with a red grape vine in it.
My largest garden contains a large veggie plot, herb garden, small orchard, including apples, pears, cherry, plum and greengage and a soft fruit area.
The veggie plot is not looking as great as normal as I’m a bit behind this year but catching up slowly.
Yes I love gardening Eileen , I started at my grandparents when I was about 3 I think, they had a large garden and allotments attached.
My best job ever was working in a plant nursery until it sadly closed.
At home I grow fruit; strawberries, raspberries, apples, plus a few blueberries and mulberries that get eaten by the birds, and veg ; runner beans, tomatoes, peppers, leeks, herbs.
A lot of my seeds haven’t germinated this year but I think it’s because I cleared out my seed tin and used lots of old seeds.
Hi Eileen,
Nice idea starting a gardening thread
I’m a bit of a gardener too, dad always grew his own veg so I get it from him, I’m behind this year, decided I wanted to change a few things and not got around to finishing them yet so it’s quite a mess, must be something in the water lol, didnt set my peas, lettuce, Radish or spring onions until yesterday, I have a mini orchard it’s a few year old now, consists of duo pear, duo apple , duo plum another apple and a cooking apple, cherry, peach. also soft fruits blueberry, black currant, rhubarb and of course strawbs Herbs well there has to be some also have a few flowers but very few. I only have a smallish garden but pack as much as i can in.
Love my fruit and veg also, photo included … told you it was a mess lol
Jax x
Great thread Eileen! I’m a very enthusiastic gardener although as I only live in a terraced house it’s not a big garden. I got started at an early age, we moved in to here when I was only three, so grew up with it. I took over various sections as Dad got too old to bother growing veg. I much prefer growing flowers, roses and camellias and the like
Gardening is my passion!
And Gary is my able bodied helper.
We do move around a great deal and have always concentrated on making all our gardens a place of sanctuary, a real place to escape to. We have gardened at both ends of the spectrum, from tiny backyards to 11 acre farms.
We moved to our present house last September and have just started on the back garden. All designs are in my head, though I do jot down a sketch to help with the planning. So far we have re-fenced the entire garden so now it’s nice and private, we have sectioned off the floral garden from the veggie garden with a wooden divide of trellis with a central archway. The floral garden is taking shape, dug out the first bed this week and have started planting it up with foxgloves, geraniums, hebes, lavender plus a honeysuckle and passionflower to scrabble up the trellis. There is still lots of spaces to be filled…just love that part of the job, deciding what goes where. We are about to build a seating arbour at the end of this side of the garden, have discovered some fabulous york stone slabs which were buried out of sight under the turf, they took some heaving to get out but we have put them to good use as a long curving stepping stone path to the archway.
So far the plant discoveries in this garden are the most amazing Camellia to the side of the patio area and a deep pink magnolia tree, also spotted two peonies coming up too.
The veggie garden has a newly built second hand greenhouse, re-sprayed sage green. We installed the first of many raised beds yesterday and it is already planted up with saladings, spinach and beetroot. We grow lots of veggies and fruits, have a well travelled Fig tree in a pot which was originally plucked from the side of a lane in France!
As you can probably tell from this ramble it really is a passion. Once the garden is a little more established we’ll take some photo’s and upload them here
I’ve just come in from spraying weed killer on a patch of nastie dandelions, a young sycamore sapling and 2 brambles.
I have in my veggie plot some wild violets and some clumps of pulmonaria and forget me nots. I’ve digging around them and will plant around them. I added some pansies at the end of the pea’s. I want the bees to come and pollutant everything.
My father in law had a 200year old Mulberry tree. We had to use a ladder to reach the amazing fruit.
I did have a blueberry in a huge pot but a certain doggy loves blueberries and he ate them off the bush. When they were all gone he then ate the bush itself.
oh yes I killed my apricot tree with a runaway lawnmower. It hit the tree just where the graft met the root stock
Most of my flowers are perennials. I do love perennials.
I’ve only mananged to get my peas, dwarf beans and some potoatoes in so far but I do have chilli peppers germinating in the conservatory.
Forget to mention how I got started…had a patch as a child for a year but when all the caterpillars ate all the leaves I screamed and decided I didn’t like creepy crawlies. No family members inspired me, to them gardening was a chore. I started to get interested when we moved to the Lakes in my teens and took the garden on, from then on I was hooked and even got my Mum interested in gardening too
I have been interested in gardening for about 20 years, but for the last 6 years I can honestly say I absolutely love it!! I have more time to enjoy it, well a bit less now I am pursuing another of my passions, art & crafts. I suffer with depression and gardening really lifts my spirit. I only have 2 tiny gardens but I squeeze as much as I can in them. I even have a small wildlife pond and greenhouse. I grow most if not all of my plants from seed and I can tell you, there are plants everywhere at the moment. I have a full greenhouse packed with tender perennials, half hardy annuals and seedlings. I have windowsills full of pelargoniums and xmas cactus still in flower! I have grown some veggies before but now its mainly flowers with some fruit bushes.
My garden and love of nature all inspire my creative side and I love to be able to share this with like minded people. Hope you like my pics.
Yes Sue your garden is so pretty. I love my garden too but I will need to wait till summer to show you my stocked garden. I have a green house too and wonder if it is really cost effective as I have to heat it and then I give a lot of my spare plants away! At moment garden is bare, hubby is going to rotovate it and then start putting onions and garlic in. We have to cover everything with netting to keep birds off and also put some wire fencing round to keep our dog and her friends out!.
I love eating out my garden and freeze what I can
Margaret and Sue you have beautiful gardens, one day I will go back to a garden garden lol. up to last year we had one half for garden and one half for veg, this year it’s ugh err! lol
Just a thought we could do seed swaps if anyone was interested
So many gorgeous gardens! Ours is a very small plot indeed. When we moved here eight years ago, the previous owners had completely paved the small back garden as they had dogs and found it easier to maintain. We haven’t changed it much, but do grow a few soft fruit canes along the fence as it is south facing. We have just started to make a bit more of an effort in the front garden. When we moved in, we planted an ‘arrangement’ of acers and they are looking really lovely at the moment with their new leaves in pretty reds, oranges and greens. We have just planted a new border in a part shaded area, so it needs a bit of growing on before it will look any where near established. We have had an allotment for about 18 months now and we will be down there tomorrow! The Fruit cordons all have blossom and the fruit bushes are doing well too. I noticed the potatoes are already poking leaves through the soil and the rhubarb is really doing great guns! Hoping to do a bit of weeding and planting over Easter.
My husband and I enjoy a bit of gardening, but mainly fruit and veg in little spots in the garden: the rest we aim to make wildlife friendly, so we have a small pond, the grass and wild flowers in the front are allowed to grow long with paths cut through it. We have apples, pears, green gages, blackcurrants, gooseberries, hazelnuts and raised beds and a greenhouse for veggies and salads. Tomatoes are my very favourite thing to grow. They taste so great fresh from the vine! Our five chickens have the whole of the back garden fenced off for themselves and they are free range. Here’s a picture of one of our raised beds and some of the fruit tree blossom.
Julia, looking at your raised beds has just reminded me to get a packet of mustard greens!
Do you find your hens go dotty for it? When we kept hens they would go crazy for those leaves
We are thinking about getting a few feathered girls here but are dithering as we don’t know the neighbours properly yet to ask if any of them would hen-sit when we go away, do so love a fresh egg though
, I started at my grandparents when I was about 3 I think, they had a large garden and allotments attached.
