Tackling the garden

 I've been so busy on the allotment recently that I've neglected the garden a bit.  The late spring flowers have all gone over now and it was all starting to look a bit wild and out of control, weeds were popping up all over the place.  In the last couple of weeks the work on the allotment has started to ease off a bit, so I've been able to start to give some attention to the garden.

When there's a lot to do in the garden I try not to let it overwhelm me by tackling too much all at once, so I work through the jobs at my own pace. I find it best to set myself a task of working on one small area at a time  depending on how much time there is. I try not to get distracted by the other jobs I can see need doing otherwise I end up up flitting about here and there like a butterfly.

So in the last couple of weeks I have had a few little gardening sessions, just working my way along the borders, cutting back the late spring flowers which have gone over, deadheading, weeding path edges, sweeping up, weeding borders. This is the time of year when I realise I cram too many plants into the borders, but at least they suppress a lot of the weeds.

As I've worked my way along the borders, I 've also made mental notes of bigger jobs which can be done in the Autumn. There are shrubs and trees which need a good cutting back and problem beds where I need to think about starting again and doing something different.

 A few weeks ago the predominant colour in the beds was blue. Now it's all changing and there seems to be a lot of yellow coming from alchemilla mollis, lysimachia and golden grasses. The hot colours of late summer are starting to appear. I can see red crocosmia lucifer, deep pinky red astilbe and knautia macedonica, a yellowy orange day lily and orange Kniphofia.

Although I haven't finished my clearing up of the garden it's looking much better and I'm able to spend time when we get a bit of sunshine, sitting and enjoying it, looking at all the lovely colours . That's what summer is about.

Strawberries

It's getting to that time of year when we go to the allotment to do work but half the time is spent harvesting produce. That's really good. At the moment that produce is strawberries. There are loads of them. In fact this must be the best year ever for growing strawberries--for me that is. I have never had so many strawberries.  I'm really enjoying them and I'm wondering what I'm doing right that makes this year's crop such a good one.

Well  the strawberries had plenty of manure early on in the year. Then I put straw under the plants to keep the fruit clean and netted them against the birds. Some of them are still being munched by slugs, but most of them are beautiful fruit. I don't mind sharing a few fruit with the wildlife as long as I get most of them. In previous years I never got around to putting the straw and netting down and it was always a race to get to the fruit before the birds or slugs.

Last year I potted up a lot of plants from the runners and these new plants were planted in the bath at the allotment.  The strawberries I planted in the bath  are not as good, and the ones in my garden also have not done as well. So the allotment beds seem to be providing the best conditions. But strawberries need to be replaced every three or four years.  They get better after the first year and then start to get less productive after the third year. The ones in the bath are in their first year and those in my garden beds are probably in their third or fourth year.  So that might explain why they are not as productive.

 We are really enjoying our strawberries.  The best way to eat them I think is from a bowl topped with cream or ice cream.  I have also been having them for breakfast with granola and Greek yogurt or with scotch pancakes and honey.  But this week faced with a massive box of them I decided that I would have to make jam. I've never done  much jam making before but with other types of fruit growing at the allotment I'm having to learn. And I really love the jam labels my granddaughter has made for me.

Townhead garden

Last Sunday Helen, the grandchildren and I took ourselves off to do some garden visiting. It was quite by chance I had found out about Townhead having an open garden day. I had spotted a poster in a nurseries a few weeks ago and then read an article in the local press. Townhead, a Georgian house  had been neglected for many years and was taken over in 2008 by  new owners who have restored the house and gardens.

Townhead is in the village of Slaidburn in the Ribble Valley. Our journey there took us through the pretty village of Waddington.  Unfortunately it was the day they were having their annual duck race and scarecrow festival. That slowed us down a bit as the village was heaving with people and traffic, but it did give us chance to do a bit of scarecrow spotting as we drove through at snail's pace. Kept the grandchildren amused.

Finally  we got to Slaidburn, parked in the village and walked the short distance up the hill to Townhead.The house appeared to have doors on at least three sides so we weren't sure which was the front door, but that didn't  matter as we weren't going into the house, just the garden. We found lawns, a pond and beautiful flower borders at the front of the house (well I  think it was the front). Most of the borders  had a purple, pink and blue theme.   We loved the purple pink and blues of the alliums, nepeta, astrantia and candelabra primula. I especially loved the nepeta because I can never get it established in my garden.    

There were one or two lovely old looking metal seats in various places around the garden.  We wondered if   they were from the original garden.  I liked the fact that they were a bit rusty with paint flaking off.  They may not have been very comfortable but added character and were ok to have a short rest.

Our entrance ticket included tea and cake and the terrace was very busy with people eating and drinking.  We had tea and cake even though we had only just arrived.  It pacified the grandchildren.

After our refreshments we moved around towards the back of the house (or it could have been the front) along to a little path called 'the posh passage'. At the end of the posh passage we had two ways to go--the walled garden or over to look at the old pedal cars.  We opted for the cars to start with, we knew the walled garden would take a long time to explore.  There was more than cars here , there were old prams and all sorts of old things.

 

We entered a small building which looked like a workshop with an amazing array of old tools--Richard would have loved this but he had been happy to stay at home.  Upstairs was the toilet.  Now I don't usually include visits to the toilet on my blogs but this was quite an interesting building with lots of old paraphernalia dotted about.  Old stone pots, metals baths, pictures and more tools.  When we got back down the narrow wooden stairs we met a man who may have been a workman or he could have been the owner in disguise.  He told us that seven people used to live in this little house. I hadn't realised up to that point that the building had been lived in at some time.

Our next visit was to the walled garden. We were well pleased with this, there was so much to see. There were fruit trees and vegetables, old brick walls, old plant pots, old metal tubs. I was in gardenalia heaven.

There was also a wild flower area and the most wonderful long herbaceous border which had peonies to die for. I reluctantly had to tear myself away  from the walled garden to enter the The Folly.  This was an interesting wildlife area with a collection of quirky stone and wooden features.

Townhead was an interesting garden with something for everyone. I would happily go there again but I think the day was a one off.  I hope there was enough good feedback to encourage the owners to do it all again next year.