Gardens in pictures - 2009

Lotus-eater

rhiwfield wrote: »

Thats some list!

How do you store or preserve your fruit?

The OH makes alot of jam and then her and the kids eat that throughout the year, but apart from that we just tend to eat it tbh. Fresh fruit on our cereal in the mornings and everytime we go into the garden, we just scoff away.
When the relatives come round, we just send all the kids off to pick whatever they want, its lovely.

Although to be fair, some of the fruit is only going to have its first big fruiting year this year. The raspberries, loganberry, tayberry and bosenberry, although they've been in for a couple of years, they have been building their strength up and this year (weather permitting) looks to be an absolutely bumper crop, the canes ready to fruit are huge.

I suspect we could freeze some, although we aren't that good at using frozen veg, hence the vast amount of beans still in the freezer from last year

How do you preserve yours?

rhiwfield

Of the soft fruit only the blackcurrants have cropped enough for a surplus and we've made jams, pies and frozen the fruit direct. Like you we hope to swim in fruit soon and 2009 looks like it could be a very good year and the start of many (fingers/toes crossed!) Otherwise we've just snacked on ripening fruit on a daily basis.

As mentioned, apples are just starting to crop in any number and I'll be building an apple store from surplus bits and pieces to go in the garage.

Only other thing we did in 2008 was to try wine making, our time involved got severely interrupted by a major underfloor leak in the heating system that meant the house was a building site for a time, so the jury's still out on the results BUT the parsley wine, tho not a fruit, seems likely to be something else again
:beer:

hex2

Lotus eater - very jealous of the 99p fig!

My garden as it is this morning:


the veg plot (and some poor lonely leeks)



and my favourite bit in the front garden at the moment, full of hellebores (just starting to flower) and cyclamen:



Thingas are just starting to get interesting, have to do a tour every morning just to see what is changing. We have a lot of azaleas, rhododendrons, mature camelias and a huge tree peony in the back so all flags will be flying soon. It then does nothing much for the rest of the year though which I have been working very hard to change - only been here two years.

Sunnyday

This is our back garden, the pots all have strawberries in except for one but they are all starting to grow now. The grass needs a lot of attention because of the hounds and i can`t wait for the weather to improve.

SD

poppet

We're lucky to have a really big garden and have sectioned it up into "working" areas and "sitting looking nice" areas.

In the working areas we have a green house, a small orchard, raised veggie beds, poulty house, sheep and pig housing.

Over winter we had a couple of saddleback pigs on the veggie beds, giving them a good clean up and manure. it worked well but they didnt half leave the raised beds in a bit of a mess , so today we have been out there tidying up and replacing the earth ready for planting.

You dig there and i'll just stand here and point - photo of some of our "working" bit
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This is ds and dd making a start on their tree house this afternoon

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betterlife

wow what a garden!

Melonade

betterlife wrote: »

wow what a garden!

Just what I was thinking

My garden is maybe the size of the greenhouse lol

I'm loving all the pics. Everyone has great outside spaces, I can't wait to see how they progress through the year :j

nodwah

that's not a garden that's a country estate!

poppet

betterlife wrote: »

wow what a garden!

It had always been a dream of ours to have a really big garden so we could keep some animals for the table, grow veggies and try and live a more self sufficient life. We were so exitied when we first moved here and couldnt wait to get stuck in. But reality kicked in very quickly and we soon realised how much work is involved in just trying to keep it looking tidy, let alone actually growing anything. We seem to be constantly battling, moles, rabbits, rats, buzzards circling the chickens and weeds...oh the weeds!
We borrowed a neighbours jcb last year and dug a "pond" so we could keep some ducks and geese, talk about wet behind the ears, we thought we could just have a hole in the ground filled with standing water :rotfl: We dug the hole, lined it, filled it with water, the ducks and geese moved in......followed by the moisquitos...and the mud and the duck poo...and more mosquitos.....we borrowed the jcb and filled it back in again covered in bites and smelling of putrid water.....the filling in process churned half of the "looking nice" part of the lawn up and made ruddy great tank style tracter marks all accross it
So we wont be having a duck pond this year.

Penelope_Penguin

March's thread is here. Just uploading some pictures from earlier today.



I'm amazed at this view - I have lots of daffodills in the garden, but hardly any in this border When I'm looking at spring bulbs in the autumn, I'll be able to see where I need more