When creating a container garden in the space outside my back door I was definitely working on creating an idea.

I’m actually a fan of small outdoor spaces. I love the challenge of having an area that is totally contained and creating different corners within it. Essentially crowding it with items but making it seem larger by the time the project has been completed.

The first thing I did was to paint the side of this building white. Thus throwing light in to the space and making it seem larger when the the sun was shining on it and reflecting off of it.

From then on it was simply a case of working out what I wanted the space to be filled with……….

Colour was something that I wanted to feature a great deal in this space. Bright colour.

I filled the cartwheel flower bed with bee friendly Salvia and lined the edges with an ivy leafed pink geranium.

I opted for pink once again but this time a paler version when potting up this Fuchsia. It stretches up to the sky beautifully and is very easy to keep, flowering all Summer as long as it’s deadheaded regularly.

In the Summer months we love to eat as many meals as we can outside and having a table inches away from your back door is wonderful when it comes to al fresco dining.

This table was actually a makeover project, much like this area of the garden, and started off life as a horrid piece of pine. I’ll be sure to feature this project in the Before & After section of my site very soon.

Brightly coloured windmills sitting in butler sinks full of Strawberry plants. Lovely!

As this space is so close to the kitchen it seems totally obvious to have most of my herbs in pots within arms reach.

All the usual suspects are here.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, marjoram and two big pots of basil.

I’m also growing gooseberries, blackberries, blueberries, apples, plums, cherries and pears. All in containers and all in this space.

Told you I liked to colonize!

Putting various pots onto wooden fruit and veg crates is a great way of creating levels and lifting the pots off the ground and enabling drainage at the same time. It’s nice to work with levels. Levels create interest and go a long way to creating different corners in the same space without huge amounts of effort.

I also created a pathway of sorts at the entrance to the container garden by lining up terracotta pots of geraniums. Try it. It works by way of suggestion instead of something altogether more obvious.

Another way of creating levels is by making this super simple pot holder from wooden boards and upturned pots. I decided to have mine painted white as I knew that it would set the rusticity of the terracotta pots off brilliantly.

I opted to fill it with two pots of Salvia that I bought last year, some purple basil and more thyme. Flanked by Borage and one of the aforementioned Strawberry sinks.

Everywhere you look the spaces has bee filled, decorated or planted.

Alongside the table I have also installed the daybed for chilling on when the heat gets a wee bit too much…….

….and over the other side are wicker chairs that are perfect for enjoying a long cool drink on.

This wee space has, without doubt, been one of my most favourite projects to date. It is small enough to never feel overwhelmed by and is so cosy. It is also a sun trap and the pots that I have planted up are growing so well and producing brilliantly.

I’ve been out there with the babies and they certainly love it.

They sleep and I hang with them and smell their little heads.

Then Daddy gets home in the evening and while I’m holding Anaïs (and the camera) he takes Ned for a little catch up with his son.

It’s beautiful to watch.

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In March I had three varieties of seed potatoes delivered – Charlotte, Vivaldi and Swift. You can see the little shoots growing out of them. I placed them all in individual trays, shoots facing upwards as best I could, and kept them in a moderate temperature with some light.

Now they look like this…

The shoots have turned in to sprouts, they are larger and they are also now green in colour. They are officially ‘well chitted’. How nice!

I have one bag for each of my potato varieties and yesterday Jodie filled each of them with 10 cm of all purpose compost and placed the seed potatoes on top of it.

As you can see the sprouts are all facing upwards.

All you have to do then is cover with another 10 cm of compost and water with three litres of water being careful not to disturb the potatoes when you do so.

And then…………

Well, I’ll be back with a potato update very soon but as far as I can tell I’m going to really enjoy working with these bags. I bought the whole lot as a kit and I would highly recommend them if you’d like to have a go at growing your own but have limited space.

Cx

LATEST UPDATE!!!!!

These were our potatoes on 6 May 2010

And these were them on 24 June  2010…

We finally harvested our potatoes on 6th July 2010 – around 13 weeks after planting. To harvest we pulled all of the leaves from the soil and then emptied the soil out onto a large sheet of plastic and just picked out our crop of potatoes.

A good way to know if the potatoes are ready to be harvested is to look at the leaves, if they are starting to droop and turning slightly yellow in colour, they are more than likely ready. Depending on the variety of the potatoes, the plants may also start to flower and this is also a good sign to show that they are ready to be picked.

We were left with some very healthy looking potatoes at the end of our harvest and they tasted pretty darn good too.

You can see how we cooked our potatoes here.

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Then last September, after all of the annuals had died back I cleared and prepped it for some bulb planting…..

…it looked like this after I had finished it and you can read about the whole process here.

Shortly after that I planted some Tulip bulbs in this bed and you can read all about that right here!

And right now, after a long cold, wet Winter it looks like this….

I have two varieties of Tulip  in this bed and one blooms a little before the other and is taller. As you can see the tall yellow ones are out and proud. The shorter pink ones are on their way and I’ll take lots of pics as and when they show their faces.

I do love blossom. I think I love it because it’s so fleeting and so reminiscent of Spring. It stays there for a little while, allowing us to bask in it’s pinkness and then it gets blown away on to the ground to make way for leaves and perhaps fruit too.

Look at this little chap. That’s what I like to see, a nice plump Bumble Bee having fun.

Cx

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How To Line A Hanging Basket & Playing With Ornamental Cabbages

Aha!

Many of you may find yourself in the same predicament that I did about a week ago. Summer is over and the baskets that held the annuals and bedding plants so well are now empty and a little tatty.

Case in point.

So instead of emptying them and leaving them dormant for the winter I have set about giving them a nice new lining (a basket’s equivalent of a new Winter coat) and some ASTOUNDING Winter colour ( a basket’s equivalent of a brand new pair of boots)

I used two pieces of Natural Moss Look liner per basket. They were not pre-cut which meant I could place them in the baskets and trim off any excess. The front and bottom of the basket were covered first and held in place with thin covered garden wire that is easy to poke through the lining and twist in to place. I suppose you can use twine if you find it more aesthetically pleasing. I think if I were doing these again I would use twine but to be honest working with the wire made the whole job not only work but also made it a great deal faster!

I placed the second piece of lining down the back of the basket and made sure that it overlapped with the piece that was already in place on the bottom so there would be no holes for soil to pour out of.

I attached this second piece to the back of the basket using the same ‘loop through the basket’ method.

Although the lining itself is polythene lined for improved water retention I placed a thick piece of polythene in to the bottom of the basket to create a pool.

And there you have it.

It looks like a cosy upside-down hat don’t you think?

No?

Neither do I really but it certainly looks like a nice hanging basket.

Finished!

Nice and symmetrical.

If you know anything about me you’ll know that I love my symmetry.

In to my new baskets I placed ornamental cabbages also known as Ornamental Kale. Bliss! I love, love, love these splashes of vibrant cabbagyness.

Kanome White.

Northern Lights Red.

And a ridiculously beautiful  one which looks great by my potted Hydrangea but from which I have mislaid the tag.

An aerial shot.

Utter bliss.

I can’t tell you what a relief it is to get this corner sorted out and hopefully leave it alone for the foreseeable future. Although I will bring the Hydrangeas inside when it really starts to turn.

And in this blueish light it all looks so Wintry.

I’ll be sure to keep a light on in the window to welcome any chilly visitors.

With the only exception being the half dead ones that Boo brings in in her mouth.

Not so keen on those funnily enough.

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Daisies Out Front
The front of our house had been looking a little miserable. It had taken a battering over the winter and was looking so dull and dreary. It needed colour, brightness and sunny faces.

Enter my hand-painted plant pots and copious amounts of Chrysanthemums and Marguerites.

I’ll take you through the making of the plant pots on Friday but to keep Chrysanth’s looking great from April right through until the end of the Summer a little prep has to be done.

Fill the bottom of the pots with a trowel full of grit to add a wee bit of drainage.

Next add some all purpose organic soil. I added enough to fill the pots until they were two thirds full as the soil that was already surrounding the plants that I had bought would be enough to take the soil up to the top.

It’s fun to potter outside in the sun. Feeling the cool soil get right under your fingernails and sprinkle itself over every surface imaginable. I always use my garden table as a potting bench as it’s just the right height but after this day’s session I could no longer bear the fact that it was looking so dry and weather beaten. It clearly needed a good dousing of teak oil.

Later, later, later!!!!!

I shoved six pots of Chrysanthemums onto my front windowsill and am utterly in love with them. It gave the front of the house the boost it needed and gives me something to smile at when I’m trundling back up the hill from a trip into town.

As long as I keep them watered, deadhead them and make sure they get lots of sun then they should continue to provide me with smiley sunny faces throughout the summer months. I’m looking forward to those balmy nights when the house is cooling down from a days worth of baking in the sun and I pad outside in flip flops to check on my friendly plants. Meditating on the day that has been and relishing the next day to come.

I like daisies!

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As you can see I caved and squeezed in enough time to get that dreary garden furniture of mine looking a little more ready for the season. If you also have wooden garden furniture that you love, but somehow feel a little ashamed of, then find out what oil suits the wood the best and proceed with painting on a drink for the parched pieces.

My own furniture needed teak oil and as soon as the oil hit the wood it started to look better and a lot more presentable.

By the next day (apart from a water ring) it was looking as good as new. By doing this job now it also means that not only is the furniture better prepared for a wet Summer if (please God no!) we have another wash-out but I don’t have to do it again in the Autumn when I’d much rather be in by the fire with a bottle of Barolo.

Lazy!

See you tomorrow when I’m well and truly entering the realm of baby showers, bridal showers and wedding favours! It’ll be ‘sweet’!

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It’s Wednesday, so I’m coming to you from the garden!

Growing a Salad Container Garden with a Tuscan Influence

I have a love of Italy deep in my heart and like to recreate the feeling I have when I’m there as often as possible at home in England. I love the atmosphere in the streets and towns and I love the air I breathe when in the Italian countryside. I also love the way Italian gardens look and are cultivated. The weather there is supreme but seeing as we seem to be having a few days of sun over here also I felt that it was finally time to begin work on a Tuscan style container garden that I have been dreaming of for many months.

In the Spring & Summer months I spend a fortune on bags of salad so this was always going to be the year when I grew my own with a vengeance (for no other reason than to shave some money off of my grocery bill!!)

I saw these two rustic looking pots at my local garden centre and got them for a steal!! They were originally about fifty quid a piece but I got them for about eight pounds each. Anybody who knows me knows how delighted that sort of find would make me. I could be offered a brand new pair of Manolo Blahnik’s (IN THE BOX!!) and I’d still have more fun dragging home some discounted plant pots *saddo*

Anyway, to get my contained salad garden off to a flying start I filled the bottom of the pots with some grit to add drainage…..

….and then filled them almost to the top with spadefuls of a regular multi purpose compost……

….and topped it all off with some large handfuls of pure compost to help my small salad plants survive their transportation from plant pot to Tuscan container.

Then I added all manner of salad plants. I bought a variety of plants from my local garden centre, choosing carefully the types of salad leaves that I know we love to devour with avocado and olive oil.  I picked up two bigger pots full of mesclun type salad leaves and placed these plants in the middle of the pots.

I chose this variety as I like the spicy taste of Frisee and much prefer baby leaf salads to huge big iceburg varieties of lettuce.

Around the edges and in the gaps I planted some deliciously fragrant Sweet Basil. I can’t have any type of salad or tomato dish in the summer months without some type of Basil. It’s smell alone is enormously therapeutic and transports me back to times of deep joy spent in Italy. As I’m not about to hop on a plane to Florence this is the next best thing.

I also added Spinach leaves. They are very similar in appearance to the Basil actually but apart from not really smelling of anything they will grow a lot larger than the Basil leaves. I will pick the Spinach before the leaves get too big as, I said before, I prefer a baby leaf salad.

I also added some Lollo Rosso leaves and not only because they add a delicious burgundy border to my salad pots. Lollo Rosso have a softer more tender leaf which contrasts well with the crispier Frisee and is also wonderful served with hunks of crusty bread dipped into Chili oil.

I’m not going to pick from these pots just yet as I want to give them a flying start before my sticky fingers begin to prod and poke as I look for my lunch. They are pick and grow-on pots. I pick from the larger leaves when they are ready and leave the smaller inner salad leaves to continue to grow and give me more food.

Another thing I am going to do is protect them with my life……

Yes, I found a slug deep in the heart of one of my pots and yes, he had started on my Sweet Basil.

Yes, I picked him up, scolded him deeply and placed him VERY far away from my salad pots.

Yes, I know that slugs have a homing device and will find their way back to the promise land if you allow them to.

Yes, I now live and sleep out of doors, next to my salad pots in order to protect them.

It’s not that I don’t trust my cloches but it’s now a matter of pride and territory and God help me if I see another slug anywhere near my Tuscan Salad Goddesses before they have supplied me with a Summer full of delicious crunchy lunches!!!!

I’ll see you here tomorrow. I have had some logs in my garden for the longest time that have finally been put to a very practical and pretty use.

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