Archive for June 2016

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Published on 10:29 By Karen

If you have read many of my posts you might have realised I quite enjoy finding different objects to plant in. I think it makes the garden a little more interesting and adds a little more beautiful. You might have also noticed I get my inspiration from many sources - friends, family, social media etc. The latest inspiration was someone who I work with. He also likes to experiment with various planters and he showed me a picture of somone who used teapots. I thought this was brilliant, and definitely wanted to give it a go! The person had hung them beside a railing along the stairs, so I thought about where mine could go...

I knew I wanted to create an 'Alice in Wonderland' style area with my teapots, so started by collecting several mix matched teapots, all different colours and sizes. I found the majority of these teapots in a local car boot, each one under £2. Others in charity shops, a little more expensive, but worth it. Turns out they're more collector's items than I thought. I started with a small amount of them, to see how I got on, but want to add more to the area now it's worked exactly how I imagined.

Some of the teapots were quite fragile so I knew it would be a hefty task trying to drill holes in the bottom of the teapot, therefore needed an alternative way to provide drainage. Ergo the stones. I've used these before, like with the Sedum containers, and it proved to be extremely effective. I also planned to hang the teapots off the wall from nails that were hammered in. However, when tested the teapots were too bulky and they risked slipping off. I decided to position in random areas in the soil instead amongst other flowers.

I got to work adding in some potting on compost (Verve - from Homebase - standard and decent) and choosing my plants to pot up. I had grown some Cosmos (can't remember which variety) from seed that was getting pretty big, and some Busy Lizzie 'Divine Mixed' that I had grown on from small plugs. I thought a nice mixture, mostly pinks and purples once flowered, would be ideal for the Mad Hatters section of my garden.

It was then about arranging the teapots in their final positions to get the right effect. I had several Cosmos and Busy Lizzie plants left over and arranged them around the teapots to go directly in the border. I knew Cosmos could grow quite tall so planted the majority of those at the back against the wall, so not to over shadow the teapots or Busy Lizzies, and planted the Busy Lizzies towards the front.

To add to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme I picked up this amazing vintage style mirror from Lizzie and her partner Ben (he does up these awesome mirrors and sells them on Etsy as a side business - recommend checking them out)! It has a little crack in the edge so wasn't good for sale - but perfect for the garden. I plan to add fairy lights around the mirror and bulk out the border with other plants once the Cosmos and Busy Lizzies are fully developed and I can see the gaps clearly.

Below are pictures of how they're coming along, a few flowering, and the ones in the teapots cascading and spilling over the edges. I'm so chuffed with this area and can't wait to continue transforming other areas of the garden.

What quirky ideas have you across and would like to try out in your garden? I'd love to know.

xo

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Feature: Lizzie's Garden

beans

Published on 05:10 By Karen

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A day in the life of Lizzie's garden.

As new (ish) homeowners, Lizzie and her partner Ben have a patch of land which is pretty much a blank canvas. Literally a dream when starting out in the gardening sphere. As her best friend who works for a garden company and is a little garden geeky, she enlisted my help with elements of the garden. So, I thought I'd feature her on this blog, as it's great to know you can start gardening whenever, and to encourage new beginners to the gardening world and provide some (hopefully) helpful tips.

They have done a pretty awesome job already on the exterior design! They have a beautiful decking area which was there when they moved in, but they scrubbed and varnished it from old to new, with some awesome garden furniture on. Mixed in with some good lighting and big plants in tubs and pots scattered around delicately, it's a pretty cosy space in the garden. It's one of my favourite things to do - sit with some gin, blankets and my best friend for a gossip here. I get real pangs of envy as my garden is still a concrete jungle at the back. Cannot wait for an area to chill with friends on a summer evening.

I love checking out inspiration for my ultimate garden seating area online - places like Instagram and Pinterest are amazing for it.

Here's just two people I follow and think their seating area is dreamy. I will achieve this. I will achieve this.

Lizzie spent last year asking me every now and then questions about how to grow plants like tomatoes and was it easy to do etc. This year, now they're fully settled indoors, they have started to expand ideas outdoors. Lizzie decided she'd love some raised beds to plant up veg. I thought it was a fantastic idea. When you have got a big strip of grass and you don't really fancy tearing it up to create a big ol' allotment style area, these raised beds are the perfect solution. They're compact, allow you to avoid poor soil conditions, and I think they're easier to manage. She had Ben grab some old wooden pallets from his work and got to work constructing them into the beds. Once the construction was complete, I advised her to get some good quality compost, and placed her order at Thompson and Morgan for some seeds and plug plants to start her first year as a self sufficient goddess (well, almost).

She can't help but be amazing with the aesthetics of it all, (whereas mine is more chuck them in a see what happens) and added the bark in the middle with the awesome hexagon stepping stones. She got these from a place called U.K Salvage - apparently it's an absolute must for any garden, and house, owners. It's based just outside of Ipswich and I'm definitely going to be pestering Lizzie to take me soon.

Lizzie had a good idea of what she'd like to grow without my help - tomatoes at the top of the list - and I just suggested some easy to grow vegetables that would start her off nicely to go with. We went with Tomatoes, Dwarf Beans, Runner Beans and Courgettes. Lizzie didn't quite manage to get the tomatoes potted up before they went in the ground, so unfortunately they didn't make the cut. Back up plan in place, we popped to the amazing Victoria Nursery in Ipswich and got some replacements, along with some peppers too.

We grabbed the tools for the job and got to work planting them all up.

With the runner beans we got some bamboo and used them as supporting canes for when they peep through the soil, tying them at the top to make a wigwam support. Important tip to Lizzie was to follow to instructions on the back of each packet. It literally tells you everything you need to know - simple. We followed it pretty precisely, and even got a ruler out so we knew how far to space them, how deep the sow them and how many rows we would be able to fit in. Not quite experts enough to just go for it yet!

We sowed the rest of the dwarf beans and courgettes in the first raised bed following the same guidelines. It's always a good idea to mark where you have sown the seeds too. Lizzie goes the extra mile with presentation and added these cute wooden labels (from Tiger for £1-£2).

Once this bed was completed we moved onto the next. This next one was for the plug plants Lizzie had; the tomatoes and the peppers.

We planted 3 tomatoes, leaving space for one that hadn't quite established itself enough yet, and 2 pepper plants. Lizzie left a gap at the front too for radishes she was going to add at a later stage. I started by showing Lizzie a good way to wriggle them out of the pots, separating the roots gently, digging the hole for them and pressing them firmly into the soil. Then handed the reigns over to her.

I advised Lizzie that tomatoes can get quite bushy if you don't 'pinch them out' so spent a little while explaining some care instructions for them and advising how often to water and how much. Think she nailed it with the awesome watering can too.

She was a little bit chuffed with her afternoon's work and couldn't resist showing Ben either. Cute. I said I'll have to come back to take more photos later in the season, and when they're ready for dinner, picked straight from the garden! Below are a few photos of the tomatoes well on their way and the beans that have germinated - excited for her.

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Green Fingered Warriors

bees

Published on 14:44 By Karen

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A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending Nancy Smith's 'Green Fingered Warriors' workshop in Ipswich.

After recently completing a 3 month trip in rural Nicaragua, learning about their lifestyle; with lack of water and irrigation systems, along with food wastage and general sustainability, Nancy created this event as her 'action at home' project, and it was a really interesting experience, which I'm now pestering her to do again so more people can experience it and learn some valuable tools and skills.

She started us off in the kitchen with tea and biscuits - always a winner. We got to hear about some of her Nicaraguan anecdotes and signed up to receive an information pack via email which would contain vital and interesting material to get to grips with after the workshop.

Once everyone had arrived we following Nancy and her notebook of knowledge to the area of her garden dedicated to herbs. I've always loved quirky bits of furniture and materials used to create a cool look in the garden, and she had completely inspired me with this piece;

An old retro bath tub full of every herb and more. All separated with roof tiles to make it easier and less crowded too. As a close friend, I've always experienced Nancy's amazing recipes at dinner, and this was an extended pleasure. We got to smell, nibble and guess what each herb was, and then she proceeded to tell us what it was mainly used for and what dishes it went great with. My favourite was the lemon balm; it smelt amazing and I'm excited to grow this in my own herb patch. I actually managed to pinch some from my dad's own mini nursery, what a result!

Next we following Nancy further down the garden to an area which was being over-grown on purpose. She told us she'd sown a load of wildflowers in these areas which were perfect for attracting wildlife such as butterflies and bees. Later on she told us the growing importance of helping the bees - something which was inspiring and thought-provoking.

She also showed us an old car tyre which she'd jacked off a local car garage (they have to pay to dispose them, so are normally more than happy to give them away for free), spray painted and then planted in. Again, loved the quirky addition to the wild area.

We arrived in the veggie patch - my favourite area - to talk about what Nancy had been trialing and experimenting with. Veggies such as Radishes, Beetroot and Potatoes were all on the list. It was brilliant listening to Nancy as she's only just starting out herself, so hearing about her trials, as well as tribulations, was super helpful. It started little discussions within the group and we all chipped in with our knowledge to help each other become better green fingered warriors!

My highlight was definitely picking out radishes that were ready and munching on them as we were taken further on the tour.

Next up was the compost bins. I've never seen so many in my life! I felt ashamed for not having one as it seems a crucial part to the garden. Nancy passed on her tips though, so I'm going to be contacting the local council to get my hands on a cheap compost bin for the garden to help improve and recycle the land.

After the tour of each section we skipped back to the garage where Nancy had amazingly laid out tons of pots, compost and seeds, ready for us to sow our own. We shoved on the radio and chatted away whilst picking some new plants to try out.

There was hella selection - too much of a kid in a sweet shop scenario. I managed to narrow it down to 3 types of seeds as I'm lacking space in my garden already; Cucumber Crystal Apple (google it- super weird looking variety), Coriander and some Mixed Poppies. Nancy also gave us some wildflower seed packets to encourage the wildlife in our own gardens and surrounding green areas, I definitely took 3 packets.

I plan to use Nancy's car tyre idea, stack them, then sprinkle in the wildflower and watch them turn into a contained, overgrown mess.

So there you go; a picture of us as Green Fingered Warriors by the end of the morning! It really was a super fun, interesting and great workshop run by the incredible and inspiring Nancy Smith. Hopefully she'll decide to run another one so more people can come along and join in - I'll definitely be plugging it on here if so!

xo

The Young Gardener