We bought our house for three reasons: location, kitchen and garden. The house is located in the heart of a village we've become rather fond of, the kitchen does not require one chef to inhale so the other one can slice a carrot, and the garden, sigh, well, the garden is the largest and best situated we could find without selling off an in-law. Mind you, we didn't describe our garden as beautiful, just large and well-sited. Unfortunately or fortunately, our garden is made up of one third lawn (pathetic at its best), one third bark, and one third gravel and paving stones. Easy to take care of but not quite our idea of a garden, in fact, it's morally objectional, but just enough structure, bones, if I may, to construct something right up our alley.
But, in order to bring life to this part of our home, it was time for a bit of wood butchery: 2" thick walls, 12" high and 23 metres long, about 100 bolts, 6 metres of waste disposal piping and a bunch of stakes. Then, 4 cubic metres of soil and one metre of mulch. Drastic soil conditions require wood butchery, well, Alastair requires the wood butchery, too. And, at last, after so many other things to do... we have vegetable and cutting flower raised beds, and they're beautiful!
After a lot of planning, designing, discussing, building, shoveling, moving dirt, and raking gravel, we have working beds. It's a bit late getting things into the soil so everything was bursting out of the pots, but we're growing zuchini, runner beans, artichokes, gourds, onions, pumpkins, tomato, jalapeno peppers, butternut squash, and bunch of things Alastair's forgotten the names of. This complements a host of herbs that we planted in spring, including cilantro, chives, sage, nasturtium, marjoram, several mints, French tarragon and few other tasty morsels.
2 comments:
It has been a lot of work, but worth every minute and drop of sweat. Marti, you should see Alastair's herbs, there a different bed from the one pictured. He's keen to collect as many as possible and we use them in all sorts of cooking.
We're lucky with water here. We're the only county in south England that doesn't have a water ban. Things here are pretty dry, but I think because we are the driest county in the country, we're most prepared for it. Lots and lots of rain butts here, just not a lot of rain. We don't have a hose or sprinklers, so we hand water.
Sage brush is pretty, but we'll look forward to seeing what you come up with. More photos soon.
Edye
I've been meaning to tell you how jealous I am with the photo of your yard. (Even without the anything sprouting.)
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