Come into the garden with Maud - all obsessive and wannabe gardeners welcome

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Whether you've got rolling acres or a tiny courtyard, whether you're a novice or a gardening die-hard, whether you're aiming for a garden of Sissinghurst loveliness or self-sufficiency à la Felicity Kendal in The Good Life, this is the place to be. Take a seat on the tastefully-painted Lutyens bench and chat with fellow enthusiasts. There may even be a bottle of gin in the potting shed.

I started looking at compost tumblers years ago, as my neighbours had one. I baulked at the price, but because I never fork over the compost in the dalek and so get very little from it, and meanwhile spend a fortune on composted bark and other things to improve the soil, I reckon I could justify the expense. Mind you, my neighbour had a cheaper model, I think - something like this.

Or perhaps I shouldn't bother?

How mnay acres do you have, JUPB? Eight daleks would fill my garden!

I like the sound of companion planting. I shall look into it.
Do you plant your tomatoes outside? I've only ever had luck with the ones in the greenhouse or conservatory.

I'm hoping to plant a herb garden this year. I've earmarked a plot in my vegetable garden. At the moment it is covered with stuff that shoud be in the shed (DH is in the process of 'sorting' it)
Once it is clear I shall have to decide what to put in it. DH rescued me some huge sections of concrete pipe which I thought I could sink into the ground so I can grow things like mint without them taking over.

We were enthusing on here about the three sisters method a little while back, Slowburner. Which squash did you grow?

We've only got three quarters of an acre but it is jam-packed (we used to have 42 unkempt acres so this is lovely and compact!)
Two sides of the garden border fields and we have lots of trees and shrubs that need cutting back - We shred and compost everything.
I had raised beds built last year - the soil level in all of them is too low, so over time I hope to raise it with out own compost.

Is it sad that I got excited last week when DH told me he had arranged for a trailer of Llama poo to be delivered some time soon?

I do have a special tool (twisty thing) to turn over the compost in the darleks and otehr bins but I must admit I hardly ever get round to it, whereas the tumbler does get turned most days in the summer

By my standards, JUPB, three quarters of an acre is vast! What did you used to do with the 42 acres?

I know I have one of those twisty, hooky stick things in the shed, but I've never used it.

Oh and llama poo is very exciting. I heard something on the wireless this afternoon about how llama farms are now cornering the market in providing 'donkeys' for Easter events!

Most of the 42 acres was let out to the neighbouring farm but I did have a lovely, crumbling walled garden - it had the potential to be beautiful but it was hard work and I was only using about 25% of it.

My hooky twisty thing lives with the many tools that I need to buy but then don't use.

I did have a lovely, crumbling walled garden

As garden porn goes, that is the most garden-porntastic thing I've ever heard on an MN gardening thread. I am beyond jealous.

And the tools. Have you got one of these? DH bought one for me years ago and I was thinking today that it and my Felcos are my most invaluable garden tools - it does so many jobs really well.

Ooh, I like the look of the soil scoop keep repeating I don't need it

My favourite and most ponsetastic tool is a copper trowel from here

I think Monty wrote about them in GW a few years ago and I got one. I'm sure all the claims about detering slugs etc are rubbish but it is a joy to use.

I think they have had a stand at the RHS London shows. The tools look lovely, but I suspect copper's slug-deterring effect only helps if, each time you use the trowel, it leaves tiny amounts of copper in the soil.

::Hypnotic voice::

The soil scoop is fabulous and has many uses, from filling pots to hacking through solid earth with its serrated edge.

Right. Off to bed with a gardening mag.

We have a walled garden but half is next doors ( with a fence down the middle)& we have the shady side.

I'd love a walled garden, very jealous. And of Pantry's 3/4 an acre. Fingers crossed the peppers and geraniums are ok. We've got two daleks on the go but they aren't keeping up with our waste so need to get another on the go.
My can't do without tools are my Felco seceteurs my brother gave me and wolf push pull hoe.

Busy day here yesterday. DS helped me finish off pressure washing the deck, long overdue job. Just need the climbing rose a d clematis to take off now and cover it, though I went to bed last night thinking really I should have planted French beans up it (it's quite high as covering subsiding steps).

Being ahead this year is turning into a fight against pests. The herbs in the Aerogarden have got greenfly abd something is happening to my chilli leaves, not sure what yet. DH finished putting weed membrane and bark down in the greenhouse, really pleased with it. Now I need to deal with the forest of tomatoes that are going into autopots out there and set up the hydro system for the herbs and strawberries, no idea what I'm doing with that yet.

I'm away from home for nine days and fretting about my seedlings and containers already. I'm on a course for a couple of days with work then staying on my parents' 7 acre smallholding and I'm going to strangle my mother if she says once more that there's nowhere to make into a garden.

Our compost heap came with the house - although needed some reinforcing when we started using it properly - it has drop in planks for the sides so its easy to dig it all out. Its about 2 m on each side and gets to about 1.5m high - we fill it over the spring and summer and empty it onto the veg bed in the winter (leaving the top 6 inches or so that gets scooped into the dalek and used at a later stage providing the bumblebees aren't nesting in it).

Lawn still needs cutting, veg bed still needs weeding, nothing planted out as its too cold - but rhubarb is looking happy

mmmm to a walled garden. I also would love one of those.

First rhubarb in the oven, cooking with our own honey (from two years ago, we buggered it up last year).

We are still going to do the three sisters planting in one of the round veg beds. Am really hoping it will keep the weeds down too.

I look after a compost tumbler at school, each section holds about half a terms worth of fruit and veg scraps from classroom snacks. I used teh compost produced at school for the first time this spring, got just enough from 2 sections to top up 6 large planters, so not VERY much compost at a time. Easy for kids to use tho and quicker than a trad box along with MUCH easier to empty. I have a trad box alongside for garden waste as the volume would over whelm the tumbler very quickly.

At home I have a worm bin and 3 darlecks and a trad bay. I ike my compost corner.

My compost bin has bloody rats in - we've had some poison traps put down, and when they've been emptied I'm going to turn this lot of compost into the soil, and then stop making it. I'm too scared of rats, and the compost is too near the house for it not to slightly ruin my enjoyment of the garden.

When we're not so skint I may investigate the possibility of a tumbler tho - they look pretty rat proof.

One day I am going to have a walled garden.

We've had a new business move into a shed unit in the 'business park' on our lane. They've dug out loads of soil to flatten an area and plonked it under some trees. Now that we've taken as much solid as we wanted for the containers I'm contemplating the bank. It's pretty much South-facing and directly opposite our gate; I think it will look lovely planted up with wildflowers...have some spare seeds somewhere .

I have madly sown some wildflower seeds under my roses - DS1 got them free to encourage bees and was keen. Can't really have a wildflower meadow in a 40' London garden, but the rose corner is sunny and otherwise not terribly usable

Am I going to be chasing self-sown campion round my garden for the next decade?

soil, not 'solid' obviously. Auto-correct's at it again.

Forgot to say I made Hugh FW's kale & mushroom lasagne tonight (third kale night in a row; having a kale break tomorrow - some is going to have to be frozen). Twas very, very nice.

I've been calling the unloved, unkempt part of my garden the wildflower area - although the truth is it is more a weed jungle.

We're in the process of clearing out some of the overgrown shrubs and trees and then I'd like to sow some wild flowers.

I leave some of the bottom bit of lawn round the apple tree unmown during the summer - I like the waving grasses - contemplating adding some flowers - I think oxeye daisies will cope, possibly campion, although ragged robin might like the clay/ damp....

I've just found this. Hi! I have a terraced pocket handkerchief. We have potatoes, garlic, broad beans and onions so far. I've got an old wicker laundry basket that I'm using for lettuce and spinach, and I have a dwarf apple and a dwarf cherry. I've also got a 'flower' side. Just planted a wisteria and have some clematis, a climbing rose, honeysuckle, and am looking to put some shrubs in part of the garden (shady), would love some advice about the shrubs. Thank you.

Welcome, Dawndonna!

The RHS has advice on shade planting here.

Two shrubs that I really love and are doing well in my shady border are viburnum opulus and daphne odora aureomarginata. Hydrangea quercifolia is lovely but has been much slower to get going.

The viburnum looks and sounds gorgeous, I shall investigate further, and know of a lovely spot for it.
Thank you.