coloumnar | Handmade with joy

If you follow me on flickr, you may have already seen some of these pictures.

This is the first year that the garden stayed green all winter long, thanks to some plants such as perpetual spinach, kale, corn salad and parsley. A quick and cheap way to have greenery in winter is to buy one pot of parsley from the supermarket and plant them everywhere (there are usually about 20 plants or more in a single pot). Parsley is very hardy and you can harvest it all winter long. Plant them before it gets cold so that they have time to establish (I usually try to plant them after I have pulled out my tomato plants, in the same pots or raised beds with added fish/blood/bone fertiliser to revitalise the soil).

Also some plants did not die, which makes me happy as it means I won’t have to buy new ones this year. I am particularly happy with the lemon verbena, vietnamese coriander and rose scented geranium (all 3 were bought from Sarah Raven last year).

Beginning of may:

This is the small raised bed behind the peach tree. The tulips were finished and the perennial wallflower plants were lovely.

The midget apple tree is full of flowers (and now have loads of fruits). It is underplanted with strawberries.

The columnar cherry tree is also flowering.

The wisteria is flowering for the 1st time. I want to keep it as a standard tree so need to prune it more.

End of may:

Seedlings are being hardened off during the day and go back indoor at night.

I want to have lots of beetroot this year so have sown plenty of them.I also want some melons and watermelons so have sown more than usual in case some don’t make it.

The berries in the backgarden raised bed grew lots of super long branches so I had to train them horizontally on some bamboo canes above the mini wall. The plant with the purple flowers is a comfrey, I use the leaves to make a liquid feed for my other plants.

Some volunteer colombine and pineapple mint in the spring onion pots.

A corner of the garden near the pink potting shed.

Only one fruit on the apricot tree I planted last year.

A corner of the back garden. The big cherry tree is full of fruit. And the red flesh apple tree also has plenty of fruits.

I love this cotinus grace. I have never pruned it so it stays airy.

I lost 2 fruit trees in the side yard (due to a drainage problem) so will replace them but this time they will go into a big pot in the same spot. The opal plum from Aldi has some fruits on it, can’t wait to taste them.