Specialty Gardening: By special request (part 3), 1 by wallaby1

wallaby1 wrote:
That veggie patch is due for it's clean up, and I still have loads of seed to sow, never ending but it keeps me on my toes!

The whole back garden was just grass with a narrow border and a couple of rhododendrons. I had to have some veggies, I used to grow all of my own but there's too much shade for some things, peas and onions don't do well.

I try to concentrate on the best value for space, sweet corn is a must but I only got a few plants last year. I only get one cob per plant, but they are something to look forward to, they have to be fresh and I don't like the supersweets. Even with a lot of shade they always produce,

Carrots, spring onions, I grow a variety called Ishikura, it doesn't bulb and keeps over winter. Parsnips I grow Gladiator, they do well usually and are great chipped or put in mashed potatao. I grow kidney beans behind the potatoes, and French beans, sometimes cauliflowers which I love, but the cabbage root fly can make that difficult.

Strawberries I keep a 3 year cycle so it moves up the garden, 2 new rows from runners each year. I have Blackcurrants, raspberries which stopped growing well with the dry summers, and Boysenberries which are heavenly but raspberry beetle thinks so too, and the blackbirds have become acrobats but I must feed the wildlife!

Behind the Delphiniums there is a Victoria plum tree which produces well, last year there were some moth maggots in some, and some butterflies and wasps enjoy them too, I get just a few to eat fresh, plenty for everyone!

Further back in front of the middle greenhouse there is an old Bramley apple tree, I don't make desserts and will use just a few, the birds are fed the rest in late winter. It had to be trimmed back a little because of the greenhouse, last year an apple blew into a roof glass pane and smashed it, I ask myself what is more important! Perhaps I should cut some more branches back.

I will be on the look out for Omphallodes seed!

Vi, I started with very few plants, I think I had around 15 which I started in pots of leaf compost in the autumn, I had to remove grass from that area and soed them in spring probably 7 or 8 years ago. They do self seed well if happy and fill in the spaces, they also flower from very young corms. I used to fill in the gaps with bush lobelia, deep blue and bright pink, but now the space is filled and other things cover it later, I like to concentrate on plants which look after themselves and don't need to be replaced! The Lily of the Valley is running into them, I hope it doesn't affect them but it does grow later.

I have a Pulsatilla vulgaris self set flowering, at the top of the bank behind the bath tub. The rest are close to flowering, I grew them from seed a few years ago, they fill in a gap with flowers then the ferny foliage stays until the autumn. I have a mixture of colours, some I grew from seed off them and placed in other beds mostly turned out red, they are so pretty.