My Own Greenhouse

My garden dreams are somewhat lofty and possibly unrealistic (at least for the near future), as we have a limited budget to work with. As much as I’d love a potting shed and a greenhouse (not to mention the hot tub), we haven’t even planned what we’re doing with most areas of the garden yet. Even if we did have the money, who knows whether they would fit?!

I certainly wasn’t planning to have a greenhouse any time soon - in fact I don’t think I’d even considered it at all - when I was given a mini one for Christmas. It is one of those with a frame, shelves and a clear plastic cover, rather than a full size glass one, and it is perfect! It took a bit more effort than anticipated to get it ready, but it is now happily housing seedlings.

My lovely husband built the greenhouse for me one day whilst I was out at work, and stood it in the garden, against the garage wall. There’s just enough space between the end of the wall and the garage window for it, and it gets sunshine in the morning. He weighed it down with a heavy stone, and so in went my little sweet peas which I had been growing inside. I had started hardening them off so figured it was the perfect time to put them in the greenhouse. I went off to work the next day, however when I popped home at lunch, disaster had struck - my greenhouse had blown over and the poor sweet peas were scattered on the patio. My husband had done his best to rescue the little plants, but there was no way they were going back in the greenhouse!

A few of the sweet peas did unfortunately succumb to shock, however a good number have thankfully survived. They went back in the kitchen for a while though to recover. In the meantime, when my in-laws came down to help us start building the raised vegetable bed, they also helped us screw the greenhouse to the garage wall. It is now nice and sturdy and (hopefully) completely wind resistant. 

The sweet peas were returned to the greenhouse, and some of them have now been planted out into a large patio planter. Some newly sown zinnias have also joined the sweet peas in the greenhouse, although I think it might be a bit early to sow them outside. It was a bit of an experiment - some in the greenhouse, some in the kitchen. Those in the kitchen are doing well, whereas those in the greenhouse are yet to poke through. I don’t know whether they’re just taking longer, or whether it really is too cold and they won’t survive. They can be planted outdoors though, and after seeing the difference between some veg (I think it was beans or peas) that Monty Don had planted outside compared to those indoors (on Gardeners' World), I’m hopeful they’re just being slow. Time will tell.

Boat Area/Future Herb Garden

The first place we really tackled last year was what we referred to as ‘the boat area’, thanks to the play boat that stood in the middle of it. The boat was made of wood, and built on top of some paving slabs. The area surrounding the paving slabs had become completely overgrown with weeds and grass. 

In this photo you can see that I'd already done a lot of work - you can see the boat though, which is the main purpose of the picture.

I was overjoyed, however, to discover last spring that between all of the weeds, there were crocuses and grape hyacinths, as well as a couple of snowdrops. 

My intention for this area was to turn it into a herb garden. That first meant clearing the area, including the bulbs. This is still very much a work in progress. I spent a lot of time weeding the area, and trying to remove the grassy bits, as well as cutting back plants. We already had a rosemary bush and and some chives, so I took the chives out and split them, putting them into some plant pots. With the help of my mother-in-law, I took some cuttings from the rosemary plant and potted them, so that we could remove the overgrown bush.

My husband and brother-in-law were in charge of removing the boat. As soon as destruction is involved in gardening, they’re all over it. The boat was quickly a thing of the past. 

I pulled out a few more plants that I didn’t want to keep, and weeded, weeded, weeded. I pulled out the bulbs and left them on some newspaper in the shed to dry out, ready to be planted in the autumn. Especially with the grassy bits, the progress was so slow. Removing grass is a complete pain. You should be able to just turn it upside down and it should die, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be that easy.

As it turned out, I hadn’t managed to remove all of the bulbs at all! Vast numbers of grape hyacinths popped up again this spring. I think I’ve more or less confined them to one side of the bed now, although I guess we’ll see next spring. In any case, the bed is quite big for just herbs, so I’m happy to keep them there at the moment. The herbs will go in next year - I’m putting some sweet peas in this year, as I’m not sure where else to put them. I’m hoping by next year I’ll have found another space for flowers, or maybe I’ll just put them behind the herbs in the same bed.

I don't actually have a photo of the full area, but you can see from this one below how much clearer it is along the right-hand side. It's more or less like that all over now, aside from where the bulbs are. I've been pretty good at keeping on top of the weeds though, so it is just actual plants growing there (for the most part), and plants that I want to keep at that.

The next steps for this bed are to lift the paving slabs, use my in-laws’ spit to remove the reed-like plant (I can’t remember exactly what it is), and more weeding. The grape hyacinths will die back and then that area will be quite bare. I need to decide at some point whether I want to move them or leave them there. If I decide to leave them there, I’ll need to work out whether to do anything else with the area so that it’s not bare for two thirds of the year. My husband is already planning to have a crazy golf course hole in the middle of this area. To be honest, it might be fun, as long as it can be properly incorporated in to the garden. I'd definitely like some more plants around in that area as it needs some colour.

One thing that drives me nuts about our garden is the gravel. The previous owners must have decided it would help prevent weeds or something, as there’s a lot of it about, and it’s all mixed in the flower beds. I end up picking loads out every time I plant or weed!

Introducing our garden

This is the start of what is going to be a very, very long project - Project Garden Overhaul.

In truth, it started about a year ago really. Towards the end of 2013, my then fiancé and I bought our first house, and we moved in just before Christmas. One of the main reasons the house appealed to me was its large back garden. My (now) husband was quite concerned about the size of it, thinking that it might be too much for us to look after. In some ways he was right - it is going to take a long time to make the garden into what we want it to be - but he didn't anticipate just how much I would love gardening, and how much time I would happily spend weeding.

Last year we mostly just tried to stop the garden from becoming overgrown, but did very little to actually change the garden (I think I'll write the next post on what we did last year). In a way, we needed to spend a whole year in our house before making changes to the garden, as we needed to see what it looked like throughout the year. It was quite beneficial, as we discovered some lovely plants. I also knew very little about gardening so was a bit worried about doing things wrongly, or killing off what we already had.

Apologies for the terrible photography skills. And the grey, rainy day.

The garden has several main sections:

• Decking - this starts right outside the kitchen (where the door to the garden is, and from which the above photo was taken). It goes round to the left of this picture to the edge of the house.
• Patio - this is to the left of the decking, and then goes around the side of the house and garage. It was left kind of unfinished, and at some point will need relaying as it's a bit uneven.
• Wood chippings - to the left of the patio, as far as the side hedge. I'll find a photo of it at some point. The people who used to own the house had a climbing frame there.
• Lawn - as you can see, behind the decking area.
• Beds - just off to the left of the above photo, next to the lawn, and going further back. One of them has three fir trees which have taken over somewhat. As much as I don't want to chop down trees, they need to come out. The other has a wooden play boat. Which also needs to come out. Once we've played on it.
• Gravel/slate chips - at the back of the garden (in the above photo, up those 'steps' on the right), right across the back and then partway down the left-hand side to meet the wood chippings. There's an apple tree on the left, and loads of plants in the gravel at the back. 

We have a lot of ideas. Mine mostly involve planting fruit and veg, some bright flowers, tidying up the patio, taking out the fir trees and planting some new plants. Plus maybe a hot tub, a fire pit, a summerhouse and a potting shed. My husband's ideas mostly involve tidying the patio, a crazy golf course, and a pond with a retractable roof. Hmmm.

Since the above photo was taken, we have actually made some progress - it seems small, but it's not insignificant. There's plenty more for me to post about in any case!