My Raw Garden II

My first lecture was cancelled this morning, meaning that I'm a free agent until three o'clock this afternoon. I decided to use the time to photograph my amazing field-like garden and put some of my plans for it into writing.

As you can see its fairly long, about 100 yards in total and my boyfriend recently built the fence around it. The fence is desperately in need of a lick of paint, but the wondrous unpredictability of British weather means that this will probably have to wait until late next spring.

The grass is a bit overgrown in this picture, so its difficult to make out the brick-built, raised bed to the right hand side... its under all that wood, I promise. There's also a small vegetable patch in the middle distance, level with the wheelbarrow.

It seems such a bland space at the moment, but its a blank canvas to paint my inspiration onto. Its ours for the next eighteen months and I plan to make my mark on it, nurturing it to be the beautiful and productive garden I've always dreamed of. A wonderful challenge I'm itching to begin.

Unfortunately moving house and settling in means we only managed to make a late attempt at tomatoes which, despite my pvc greenhouse being blown over by the wind, had managed to flourish. Sadly the fruit never ripened and they're now just a brown, tangled mass. Not to worry, I'll just toss them on the heap and try again next year.

The garden actually extends further than is apparent from the first picture. At the very top of the garden is an overgrown mess which adds and extra fifteen metres to our overall space and after much tlc I hope to make this my main vegetable garden. Before the chills and frosts set in I hope to have cleared the weeds and unruly plants from this patch and hopefully sown a green manure to help improve the soil quality.

When building the fence my boyfriend installed a gate in the far right hand corner, the hinges and handle are hidden, so that it can be my secret garden, similar to Mary's garden in The Secret Garden.

I'm finally ready to put all my reasearch and reading into use. I have been a gardener in my heart for five years now, its time to start putting my dreams into action.