My garden makes me so happy

[HumphreyCobbler]

I wanted a garden all my adult life, and for the last three years I have had one.

To begin with I was worried it wouldn't be as much fun as I thought it would be, but I soon discovered it was even better.

It was an overgrown, tangled mess when we moved in and slowly we have transformed it. I am still a beginner, but I already know so much more than I did.

Today I came home to find a massive pile of well rotted horseshit waiting for me. It was brilliant.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, I just wanted to share

Oh my.

and not to handle it without gloves. Which bits are good in pimms, before I uproot the beast and stick it in the garden bin?

The leaves and flowers, I think, although apparently there is some controversy about this.

I would freeze the flowers in ice cubes, Jareth. I grow borage for its bee and ladybird attracting powers. I may put it into my front garden where it can go rampant if it likes, so that there is a drift of it and I can take up new small plants to put quarantined in a pot near things I want to be helped by its "magic bullet of companion planting" powers.

Tell me about the magic bullet effect, Lexilicious. Does it have powers beyond attracting bees?

I put borage in my 'pew planters' and as it's been contained it's quite a manageable size. However, I saw some growing in a garden centre show garden yesterday and it was quite scary!

Didn't get much planting done today as it's been really quite wet all day (yay!). Also discovered that the new bed has obviously annoyed our local fox who apparently liked going under the fence and now can't. It has remedied this by digging a very large hole through the soil and under. I'm leaving the hole and shall plant around it to leave a fox corridor as I can't bear the thought of it digging up all my plants every night.

Maud: wikipedia but there are many other references too

To summarise, dear old borage...
Helps:almost everything, especially strawberry, cucurbits (cucumber, gourds), tomatoes
Attracts: Predatory insects, honeybees
Repels/distracts: many pests

Some of these companion plants you need to have in the ground (the ones which fix nitrogen to improve the soil or bring up deep nutrients with their tap roots). Others you can just have in the area to attract pollinators to the garden as a whole. Others you need to have shielding your key plant so that unwelcome bugs don't bother it. It seems quite an art but luckily you don't have to do the entire system - just pick and choose elements and they'll do some good at least.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficial_weed

Thank you. My early attempts at companion planting failed, so I haven't thought much about it since.

ok, am confused now.

I DO have a borage plant, it is enormous. I thought I must have been mistaken as someone pointed out a blue flowered plant as borage the other day that looked like a larger, dark blue forget-me-not. This was about two feet tall and grew in drifts that had self seeded everywhere. Which is the real borage?

The Rosamundi is out

Could the other one be alkanet, Humphrey? It's often mistaken for borage (including by my dear mater who gave me one as a 'borage' plant when I started this garden).

YES! I have been wondering about this all day.

Thank you Maud

::Runs round sitting room with t-shirt over face, goal-scoring footballer stylee::

I have been lurking occasionally on this thread but just wanted to stick my head in and say a huge thank you to Maud. Have been trying to find out for weeks what the alkanet at the allotment is, no one knew and it was really bugging me.

::Does another circuit of the sitting room, t-shirt over face::

Stay and post, WynkenBlynkenandNod. Tell us about your lotty.

Wonderful wonderful rain. After a bit of a deluge, we now have that soft, slow steady rain that gets right down to the roots. My moved and hastily dug in plants seem to be doing quite well, surprisingly.

In other news, I have 3 containers of cheap pepper to sprinkle around my rose as the bark chippings seem to have been mistaken for cat litter by some of our local feline friends

Good idea re fox corridor Pkam. It is fairly impossible to divert foxes from their tried and tested routes in my experience! I want to know when I'm going to get my allotment ::stamps foot::

Deluge here too, and now drizzle. Clearly my naked rain dance did work, although the effect as delayed for a couple of weeks!

I [touches wood] have just managed to block a fox route, but it did take several years and a lot of burying paving slabs under the fence to wear them down.

My tip for getting a lotty Christine, is to get pregnant and then you'll be offered a lotty in the same week, after waiting ages for both! I realise this approach may not work for everyone.

I thanked you last night for the rain Maud :o I suspect the likelihood of my getting pregnant considering my advanced years is slim to none but perhaps I'll have one of those miracle babies

Oh yes, Christine, but my rain dance seemed to work everywhere else before it worked here!

My first chickens were called Wynken Blynken and Nod. Excellent name.

I know I keep going on about it, but my Rosamundi looks fantastic. I really really love that rose. It looks great against the lavender. All the other roses are looking good except William Lobb who got severe mildew and Debutante which isn't out yet. Francis Lester is very pretty.

Eating bowls and bowls of strawberries - bit of a shame that I am supposed to be doing Dukan. Broad beans tomorrow.

My first cosmo has flowered! It's the first year I've grown my bedding plants from seed, and they're doing well.

well done - mine are a long way from flowering yet. Think I should have started earlier.

Mine are just starting to flower.. I did plant them in Feb though :-)

My delight today is the first flower on one of this year's new geraniums - Brookside (very pretty shade of blue). The cerinthe I grew from seed are beginning to look good, but my lupin has been shredded by snails. ::sad face::

Yesterday I discovered a HTA gift token which I was given last birthday but had forgotten about. After a struggle to find anywhere locally to accept it, I have bought Rosa Gloriana which I am hoping will work well by the front door. If it doesn't, it'll be banished to the back fence.

I love that rose Maud. Really lovely colour. It would look good on the back wall of my house

I am expecting that the colour against the new umber paintwork will be fabulous (if it isn't, it will be vile, there won't be any middle ground). I'm slightly worried that the flowers are small, but there should be lots of them. I'm contemplating shifting the passion flower to grow up it, for further purpleness.