sunday afternoon gardening

It’s about time for a garden update, don’t you think? It seems the last time I showed you recent garden photographs was the end of April – I didn’t realise it had been so long!

You may remember that I was very excited at having turned this (in 2009)

via a few steps into this

and then into this

Well, a few weeks on, it’s looking rather purple and full of chives

(I could draw your attention to the complete lack of salads in any of those beds, despite the profusion that have been planted, but I imagine that would just make the slugs laugh, so I won’t)

After that, I went on a bit of a raised-bed-building spree.

The area on the other side of our little terrace turned from this (last year)

into this

into this

I’m hopeful I might actually get more than one broad bean pod this year!

I’ve loved having these beds surrounded by woodchip. Yes, it’s a little bit like one of those weekend garden makeovers you see on the tv. But I’ve always struggled to keep on top of this tiny garden, and this feels so much more manageable.

Today was the turn of the bit outside the kitchen window.

What a mess! We avoid planting anything too tall here, as this is where the bird table is and we don’t want cats to be able to hide. This is mostly creeping Jenny – ground cover with lovely yellow flowers, but with rather a lot of weeds in there too. It makes me slightly cross every time I look out of the window.

First I pulled out all the plants

At this point I was joined by Mrs Blackbird again, who was very interested in the worms I was digging up (sorry worms). She stayed close for a couple of hours, finding food, taking it to the nest, coming back for more. I was surprised at how unafraid she was – she was standing only a foot away even while I was digging.

Later I was joined by Mr Blackbird, who took over foraging duties for a while.

Occasionally shoeing the birds out of the way, I made this

and then filled in the gaps with yet more woodchip. Mrs Blackbird came back to investigate at this point and didn’t seem impressed at all (if lots of tweeting and slightly puzzled looks is being unimpressed).

Want to see the end result?

Ta da!

These are just small beds, and I’ll fill them with small, low growing plants rather than veg. I’m pretty chuffed with how it’s turned out – it makes looking out of the window a lot more relaxing!

Next job (not today) – taming the willow fence…

Have you been out in the garden today? Any bits that annoy you? What will you do to them?

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