Garden 2012 no16

Garden2012 no 16

So now I’m 11 days post surgery and absolutely NOT supposed to be gardening. But I needed to go to the shop which is only across the road and that meant walking though the garden. The first thing I did was to fall over my tub of beetroot, while I was down there, sitting beside it, rubbing my knees and feeling very foolish, I was close enough to notice how badly it needed watering. I thought ‘just doing a bit of watering couldn’t hurt’, and that’s what I intended to do, just a little bit of watering. 

That is until my friend arrived, she’s not a gardener but she knows how much my garden means to me. She agreed to pick the last of the broad beans and pull what was left of the bean plants ready for composting. 

Some of the beans were already going black on the plants, they wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Picking the beans, pulling the plants, collecting the canes and then doing some watering was the only work that was done today, plus pulling a few of the biggest shallots and   beetroot, but it was enough to stop me getting really frantic. 

I couldn’t help noticing the rhubarb needed pulling, some of the lettuce has to come up and some of the Tay berries are ripe. 

The nasturtiums have mostly gone to seed and there is grass growing in their tub.   

And of course the weeds are thriving in my absence.  After my friend helped me out we just sat outside, enjoyed the sunshine and admired the plants. The pond is looking good. It is covered in duckweed now which, as far as establishing a wildlife pond goes, is a very good thing. The water under the duckweed is crystal clear and the tadpoles and baby frogs are loving the cover it gives them.

Today is the first time I have sat in my garden, in the midst of my plants and enjoyed being there for almost two weeks, It was lovely, until big black clouds appeared and blocked the sunshine.

This evening I have bottled my first jar of beetroot and my first jar of shallots. It’s a start and the rest will be OK in the ground for a little longer. I hope I can get back out there soon, my garden needs me.