Here at the beginning

In this post I’m going to focus on gardening and show you where I’m starting from.

I’ve lived in my current home, and with my current garden, for almost a year now. The house itself is about 20 years old. The “main” garden consists of a fairly mature, quite mossy, lawn. There is a collection of ornamental trees down the back and beech hedges on both sides that are badly in need of a trim.

If you look closely at the image above you may be able to see a small hole in the back wall, with an un-hung gate. That hole I knocked myself, with my fathers help. It gives access to the “back” garden. A plot of land included with the house that was left as a field by the original owner, for reasons I am not privy to. I suspect they may have kept an animal back there at one point, but if they did it was many years before I came along.

For an unknown number of years, the back garden was left wild. It is a mess of high density grass, reeds. I’ve removed a thick ditch of wild brambles that was growing on that side of the garden wall, and a few large patches of nettles.

I’ve also put in a small raised bed and planted a few dwarf fruit trees, but the majority of the space is still wild. It’s a fairly substantial parcel of land which could comfortably accommodate a number of different uses without feeling crowded. Which is just what I want.

The fruit trees have taken very well. Here’s an apple that is developing on my cox orange pippin. I’m surprised it’s fruiting at all. The trees are all very young and were only planted last February. We recently had an unseasonable cold spell that did a lot of damage to trees throughout the area, but aside from a small amount of leaf discoloration the fruit trees made it through just fine.

The most recent addition to the back garden is my shed. It is a 10′ x 8′ treated timber shed. It actually only arrived this week, I’d show you the inside but it’s completely empty! I am looking forward to converting it into my base of operations for the various projects I take on.

This is the point at which I am starting from. The general long term plan is that the main garden will be where I put ornamental and pretty plants. The back garden being for fruit and vegetable beds, though I may at some stage incorporate a bit of a wildflower meadow as well.

I reckon that will keep me busy for a couple of years to come and I’m looking forward to the journey!