Heart of the garden

 Some photo's you see often, I love these steps to my back working section of the garden, whilst a necessary path, I do like to see colour and blooms in this area, it can still be seen from the house. I have dug out my tulips from their huge pot and popped them into a old compost bag, to die back naturally. This tiny shed holds all my canes and other bits and saves me walking into the garage so often, in the top is nets of different sizes and old compost bags, which I reuse around the garden. 

Green house shelves with loads of seedlings and small plants, flowers for cutting in two bags and my tomato tubs, they will go outside once it's warm enough, along the back is my cacti and succulents, they stay inside all the year. I do use my chair often, normally sat just outside in the shade. 

This is a working side, my small plastic greenhouse, now without it's cover is a useful set of shelves, I have a deep tray on each level to stop water running away. My potting tray is very useful here, so there is always bags of compost, I also keep larger plants in it again to keep the water from running away. On my table through the cooler months are these two begonias, they are now starting to form leaves, soon they will be back out in the garden.

My sweet peas are doing well, I have already had one bloom, there are two buckets with carrots in, and two tubs with cabbage and cauliflowers in, soon my cut flower bags and a couple more bags will line along here. I access my raised bed here now planted with salad bits, which is working well, it's a sunny spot. 

I now have 4 bags with potatoes in, last year I grew in two bags, they have been planted at different times, behind my blackberry bush is bursting into life, it is trained to grow along the garage walls. Here is my big bug house and loads of other bug places. This area gets all them morning sun, but is then shaded and protected from the wind. 

Another full space behind our garage, I have my water butt, a storage place for plastic pots, my composter and a wood store, on the fence side two dustbins for leaf mulch, a system which works well for me. My camping rack is out full of plants ready to be planted out, most of these I am hoping the school will take. In the front corner, not seen is two huge tubs, with flowering plants. For years I had a shed here, but this space works better like this.

I have a section of wall in the garage, I don't need much space, the unit was purchased over 20 years ago for use in our conservatory in our previous house,  now it's full of lots of gardening bits, the handy shelves above store most of my fertilizers away from tiny hands. More compost, and my tub with green waste, which will go into my composter, my trug I was given as a birthday present, I hardly use it, I have a plastic one which is always my first choice, maybe once I have flowers I can cut I will use it.

Every garden has a working heart, this is mine, as with everything I do like to see it tidy, I know where everything is, and I know it's safe for the little ones, they have a huge bucket of toys, their scooters and a bike in the garage, so they do come inside. The main thing is everything is to hand, where I use it, the tiny shed has saved me loads of time and bother as often hubby is working in the garage and I don't have the need to go by him. 

The back corner behind the garage is a bit strange, not all the neighbours fences come together, we looked at putting a panel in but it would have been difficult, so we have put chicken wire across the hole, neither neighbour can view it, I have popped a climbing rose in front in the corner, in hope it stops the foxes getting in, so far it is working. I have been training shrubs to grow along our back fence, so it's starting to look nice. 

I think I might just get a top award for getting the most out of a small space, in the summer some of my paths are full of extra pots and bags, but mainly where I walk, hubby is not a fan of too many pots, so I keep them to my back section. We are doing very little this week, staying at home together, nothing planned for the weekend, lazy days, I can always find something to do outside. 

Back to our normal

 Our first roses, these are a climbing variety, it fills the gap between our garage and fence, my white rose behind the garage has buds on, I also have 3 bushes, 2 yellow and a deep red, summer is close when we see roses. I am battling white fly at the moment, neem oil is helpings, but not sorting the issue.

 

It was cooler on bank holiday Monday, with a brisk breeze, it tried to rain a couple of times, I spent an hour in my greenhouse, 3 of my tomato plants are in their final tubs, I have popped 2 cucumber plants in bigger pots, the tulips are not yet ready to be removed from the huge pots. All my french marigolds seedlings are potted on, I created a bag with asters in, hoping for cut flowers. There is my horseradish plant re-growing in the old tub, I will use anything handy to grow in, these are all a perfect size.

This flower bed is just how I wanted it to look, the fleabane daisies are a froth of flowers, I will need to keep them trimmed throughout the summer, they hide most of the raised veg wooden sides. I am truly disappointed with the willow hurdles around the veg bed, I ordered them off line last summer, they were not cheap, but they are already starting to fall apart. I have seen a dog guard system, metal and much cheaper, I will need to weave hessian in to fill gaps, I won't get it until end of summer.

We have an abundance of rhubarb, we already have had apple and rhubarb crumble a few times, so hubby made an rhubarb upside-down cake, it's lovely. This is our second years of growing our own rhubarb, and the first year we can harvest any.

Monday was on the whole a lazy day, helping daughter these days is much easier as the little ones grow, they don't often wake up in the night, but I do get tired, playing with them in the garden on Sunday wore me out, they are such good fun, most of the time playing happily together. Tuesday we popped out to get gravel for my hosta pot, just a quick trip to B & Q, I got a 6 pack of beetroot plants, which I have seperated into 14 plants. Wednesday morning  I had to visit our dental hospital, I have a back tooth which needs to come out, this visit is the pre treatment appointment. 

We walked to the village, we ordered our bedroom carpet, which was way more expensive than we budgeted for, that's the downside of having a huge bedroom. We did choose a slightly cheaper brand, and choose a pale green with a subtle fleck.

I'm not reading much, neither crafting, nothing much on TV, so we listen to music, I like to do the New York Times puzzles, keeps my brain ticking over. I am still following a few British Sign Language people, do I practice most days.

My garden

 The only item purchased on our break was this deep plastic water barrel, our water feature was getting so dirty, and needed cleaning almost weekly, having deep water and setting the fountain higher, we hope this will stay clean, it does look and sound good. 

A couple of years ago I dug out the planter by my back door and put everything in this huge tub, it has never been great, this spot only gets the sun in the evening. One of my hosta pots was rotting away, so the perfect solution was to dig the old stuff out and replant around the garden, I just need some gravel to deter the snails.

I always use my builders tray, it saves so much mess, again I sieved my soil, I took another break before cleaning up and Lilly went to check on my work.

Friday we decided to have a rest day, met daughter and Molly in town, we walked to the pottery place to get our Easter painted items, we were all pleased with the results, both Molly and George items were much better than expected. Here are hubbies planter and my chicken, I will sort him a plant to bring it to life. 

The garden is looking good, I have watered it twice since we have been home, almost everything survived in the greenhouse, I use growbag trays on all my shelves, I flooded each one before we left, and left the door open.

The extra plants and bulbs have mostly found spots around the garden, except my pale pink peony, and 2 aquilegia's they are in big pots for now, all will need growing on before planting. I also planted another 2 potato bags, and sown more peas. I have not yet started my runner beans, they are going to be late this year.

It's been a busy few days daughter fainted on Friday afternoon at Wills school, we drove down to get them all home, hubby took daughter to doctors after a quick check up, we think it might just be the heat. I spent most of Saturday  and Sunday morning with them, just helping out and ensuring daughter got some rest. We had a family BBQ on Sunday afternoon. Today is a quiet day, hubby is out this afternoon, so I will spend a couple hours outside, it's not so hot, so I have seedlings in the greenhouse to pot up.

The MD of the failing Southern Water, Tim Mcmahon has now stated the issues are with the people, we use too much water, if we cut back our usage, water security would be better, we are a dry part of the UK. How about if you used all the funds we pay to stop the leaks and improve the water supply, that might be a good solution.

Veg gardens in Heligan

I'm not going to apologise for more photos, I took so many, I was not expecting so many cultivated gardens, they are laid so pretty and full of succession planting, they grow all they require. Northside Dave, you would love to see the well tended rows of different crops.

Hubby with local

They have loads of huge cold frames and old wooden greenhouses, many built along the sunny walls, full of tender fruiting plants and home grown young plants. All the sunny walls had fruit trees and bushes fanned along them.

Love these

It was a bit too early for the cut flower beds, they were planted, everywhere was stunning. Tulips were on their last flush. 

The weather was perfect, dry and hot, some of the lower parts were still a bit muddy, hubby did state he would not have thought to visit, but he was happy to walk around, he took his big camera and tooks loads of photos. I too had my big camera, but most of my photos here are from phone camera. 

Both our car journeys were brilliant, clear roads and no holdups, we did set out for home on Wednesday at 7am, just to beat the heat of the day.

A perfect few days away, Lilly was OK she jumped into my arms when I picked her up, I don't think she was happy being inside for so long. She was straight into our garden where she happily played for hours, later she snuggled on my lap, so I'm forgiven.