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

Yeah, I had a little google and found something that mentioned blue star flowers, which is what made me wonder whether the effect would be like camassia.

Does the Sunday Times have good gardening coverage?

re the sunday times - I would say no. Used to be much better but now across two facing pages in the 'home' supplement they just have one Joe Swift article and a side-bar of Q&A - they are good enough but it's just very limited. They also used to have much much more interior design / furniture / fabrics but now interiors are a single page of about 5 'desirable things' in a theme. Most of the Home supplement is therefore about high end property, people with what I call 'nice problems to have' and adverts.

Daily telegraph much better, gardening section of the website excellent too.

I did very little this weekend in the garden other than ask DH to do lawn mowing and eating courgettes. I have a mystery squash/gourd from a courgette-like plant and don't know how to cook it. I need to do some more sowing soon but have to write a plan first.

Oh oh oh, the big news is that I have realised I want to make all this ^ my life. I have a plan in my head to set up a wee business on 'sustainable living' involving kitchen gardening, energy efficiency and water conservation and all sorts of things like that. I still have a day job at the moment but it is not floating my boat any more and I have realised that it is not a career. So from now on, I just go into the office for buttons, my energy and passion stays in the garden. (Instantly happier, now that I realise I don't need to kid myself that the civil service would ever deliver my personal and professional fulfilment!)

Lexilicious that sounds amazing. Well done for realising what you want and for going for it. Very good luck to you.

Agree with Lex about gardening coverage in the Sunday Times - very limited. Also, on a non-gardening topic, agree with you Lex about work. I have resigned from my civil service job and shall be moving on in around 4 weeks time. Wish I had a dream like yours though, mine is more of the same but with an employer that actually gives real benefits. Your idea sounds very exciting.

Ooh that sounds great lexilicious! Lots and lots of luck to you :) Yes, gardening coverage in Telegraph is much better than ST (and entirely agree with your pithy summary).

I was at my parents at the weekend and my mum took me to a new family run nursery with bargain prices! Got Anenome Honorine Joubert and Echinacea Magus in 2.5 litre pots for £4.50 each! I also got some frame things to prop up the Macleaya and the Eryngium which are flopping all over the shop. I am now worried that I have gone for things that are too tall when it is vv windy here because we are so close to the sea. Hmm ...

Good to know that I don't need to change my Sunday reading (I get my dad's old Telegraph gardening sections and like the coverage in the Guardian, even though it's not quite the same without Christopher Lloyd).

Honorine Jobert is a fab plant - I have divided it so many times that I have clumps all over the garden - I hope it gives some unity to my black and white border which is otherwise a bit ramshackle.

Good luck with the business venture, Lexilicious! (Am rather amused to find so many ex-civil servants here).

Ooh that's good to know Maud. Yes I also miss Christo but I keep the Well-Tempered Garden next to my bed as I find it really inspiring and good to dip in and out of in times of insomnia. And I have spoken to Fergus Garrett twice (once initiated by him) so I almost feel I met the great man :o

Just watched GW. Has anyone ever used the garlic spray for slugs?

List of jobs for this weekend

cut back the catmint
sow aqueligia seeds
prick out hollyhock seedlings
take lavender cuttings

my jobs for my next (child-free) three hours

Move thyme and marjoram. Lift irises to rockery. Tip out soil from expired borage, rocket and salad where iris were. Do something with lovage? Break up pallet. Hold back courgette. Strong pole for pumpkin. Tie in squash, toms, beans, solanum. Cut down geraniums.

haven't watched GW yet but am very keen on non-toxic pest control. I'm sure I bought an ecover washing up liquid to use in a squirty bottle for blackfly, but I can't find it.

I have just done some tying-in of sweet peas, but still only have one measly flower. Grr.

Going to make you 'Grrr' even more Maud as my sweet peas are now taller than me and are just fantastic.

This weekend's endeavours: I spent two hours weeding the drive and the long bed which was surprisingly enjoyable. Made three course dinner for friends almost entirely from home-grown produce. If only we could figure out how to grow wheat and rice... Also had a BBQ this afternoon where we podded the peas straight onto our plates (or into our mouths) which was lovely.

Am also going to try and trump Humphrey's raspberry harvest by having picked 12lbs of white currants this morning off the white currant bush in the 'adopted garden'. I do nothing for this bush apart from repair the old fruit cage around it from time to time. It is totally overgrown with weeds and thistles but every year is just laden with fruit.

Ooh, and my agapanthus are flowering.

So happy to have the sun shining and be able to enjoy the garden again this weekend.

Oh well. There are plenty of buds on my poor, late sweet peas. My bog standard agapanthus are flowering, but the white, purple and dark blue are as behind as my sweet peas. Mercy me.

my agapanthus from Lidl show no sign of any flowers at all, although foliage looks healthy.

My major gardening disaster are my courgettes. Last year I planted six plants, this year only two in order to avoid a glut. One of them died so I think a glut is most unlikely.

Dug up all the salad potatoes today. Ate some maris piper for lunch along with roasted onions. I pulled all the onions today as they had started to go a bit mouldy, I have lost a fair few of the white ones. Tasted lovely though.

I was an idiot today. I did one hour of gardening this morning while husband and son were at the swimming pool, then had a bath and got dressed into 'proper' clothes. Then I just kept finding things to do all afternoon, ending up with realising I had spent hours kneeling on the grass/mud in white linen trousers. I've washed them and they're on the line but there is still some ingrained brown.

Still, I did all my list above, also tidied up the shed, mowed the lawn, upgraded my 'Butterbush' squash into one of the 150 litre 'growbeds' I bought at the Hampton Court Flower Show, sowed basil, carrots, beetroot, kale, radish, angelica, clary sage and winter savory, and some salad leaves. I used a bamboo hoop to hold back my rambling rose to start training it over the frame to cover the bins (not yet built - a winter/spring project).

And, my god, the butterflies today! Holly blue, meadow brown, red admiral, comma, large and small whites, and a small heath. I'm sure there were more but those I identified. Also many many different types of bees and hoverflies enjoying oregano/marjorams in flower, thyme, VB, lavenders and chives. We ate four blueberries off the 'early' bush and observed three ripening on the 'mid' season bush. My thornless blackberry has many more fruits and some of them might be jolly nice on top of the birthday cake for my little boy next Sunday...!

Wow to all of that, Lexilicious - and oops to the ruined trousers. Perhaps the sun will bleach them white again?

I couldn't resist gardening in my lovely leather gloves last winter with predicatable results Lexilicious.

You have inspired me to get sowing stuff again. Something has eaten all my salad leaves but I do have those weasel run things I could put over the top.

May I have a quick boast about one of my more successful planting combos - sambucus nigra Black Lace and clematis Star of India? 'Tis purple gorgeousness.

Lovely.

Isn't it nice to have some lovely weather for a change? DH seems to have spent the entire day mowing as the grass has got SO long in the rain.

I found some photos of the garden three years ago and neither of us could believe how different it looks now.

I love clematis but kill everyone I buy. If I plant them out they die (complete brown wilt thing) and if I keep them in pots they just don't do anything. Makes me sad.

Spent 1.5 hours clearing nettles today in the woods in the adopted garden. Got DD's 5th birthday coming up and I'm taking the party into the woods to look for the faraway tree and find fairies and goblins. But didn't want to send lots of 5 yrs olds home with nettle rash! I had to wear far too many clothes for today's temperatures. Found a hydrangea over there hidden in the bushes which is shockingly blue.

I've only had two clematis which have died unexplained deaths, but I have killed two by accidentally pruning them to the ground in an overenthusiastic and indiscriminate attack with the Felcos.

The plan for the party sounds delightful.

I have a clematis that never thrived, it was alive but only just. We dug it up and threw it in the corner. Found it the other day growing right up the wall, the contrary object.

I may try throwing one of my potted unhappy clematis into a disused corner somewhere then Humphrey, ignore it and see what happens. Can't do any worse than I am already with them so maybe a radical approach will work...

Found I had gained 'a friend' this morning - a big fat tick behind my knee. Must have picked that up whilst battling with the nettles. So I'll be sending the 5yr olds home post party with nettle rashes, bramble scratches and ticks! Perfect.

yuck yuck yuck.. What did you do with it?????

I spent seven weeks on the Isle of Arran when I was doing my undergraduate dissertation, and in the course of that time rambled hither and thither through much fern-clad hillside, which also supported sheep and deer.

I had 27 ticks in that time. I pulled them out with tweezers, gingerly but I didn't 'unscrew' them as you are sometimes advised. Some were quite engorged on my generously donated blood. One had even decided the bikini line was the place to be. Anatomically, he was quite right, it's a good place to take a pulse if your patient's wrist or neck is difficult to reach or the pulse there is weak.

Honestly, the shit which clogs up my brain is immense.