Welcome to my blog!

Here, I journal the transformation of our tiny London backyard into a dream garden. I hope you will like it!

A dream garden, for me, is an outdoor space filled with rich colours and seductive scents, offering beautiful flowers, interesting textures and tasty morsels for our delectation. Also a source of nourishment for the local wildlife - birds, butterflies and bees. A space to enjoy with my SO, friends, family, and, of course, our cats. Somewhere to sit and have coffee, or even a meal, and a tiny patch of grass to lie on in the fleeting sunshine of the English summer. And, we're almost there...

Unless stated otherwise, all photos are by me (or my SO) and are clickable.

Thursday 22 March 2012

More sowing!

Spring has most definitely sprung, as evinced by the cheerful yellow daffodils and scented pink hyacinths in the front garden. Unfortunately, they are poking through last year's weeds so I haven't taken a picture! I foresee a busy weekend...

Not just with weeding and pruning the front garden, but finally planting the first of my square foot garden. My wonderful SO has made the frame from untreated timber, and we filled it with a mixture of bought potting compost, vermiculite, garden soil, and our own black gold - the garden compost. Look how rich and dark it was, under a layer of still non-decayed garden and kitchen waste. We removed the top layer, used the well-rotted compost to fill the square foot bed, then put back the rough stuff and mixed it with even more peelings, grass trimmings and such.

I have also sowed two more batches of seeds, mostly a variety of herbs (2 types of basil, hyssop, borage and winter savoury) and some bright annual flowers (zinnia). It is still early to sow warm-loving plants such as French beans and courgettes, but more resistant veg such as radishes and carrots can be sown directly into the soil of the new bed. Something else to look forward to, this weekend!

Square foot bed:

Compost: