Challenging what edible gardens can be

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

This isn’t any kitchen garden. It’s one that challenges what edible gardens can be, and does it really well. It was one of my favourite gardens at the show, and as is so often the case every time you looked you saw something more.

Initially the borders appear purely ornamental, but every plant in this garden is edible.

Every plant.

Wow.

And you’ll even spot some conventional vegetables in there, along with plenty of inspiration I’m sure.

As with every garden, and one that grows edibles especially, insects are important and so the bug hotel makes every insect welcome. The round corten steel exterior filled with pipes of varying sizes, themselves filled with insect friendly materials also looked good.

As I walked around the garden - in fact I went round twice - I kept seeing more and more plants, some challenged me as being edible, but they were. The cannas I struggled with but its the root that you can eat, and while not something many of us normally have on our plate, it met the criteria for the garden.

Clearly I was far too excitable about the mushrooms growing along the fence as I’ve chopped part of them off - unbelievably this is the best picture I’ve got.

In the greenhouse the plants were enjoying the very warm day, but I was more taken with the extra growing space that these pea shoots and micro herbs were in. I’m keen to get some of these when I get a greenhouse sorted for here - as my plan is to have a greenhouse on the smaller side, so being able to make full use of its space is likely to be key.

It really was a special garden, and well designed by Lucy Hutchinson from She Grows Veg - who also has a fabulous Instagram feed, so do go and check that out for plenty more growing inspiration. It’s also a garden I enjoyed revisiting today on this greyest of grey and wet days.

Roll on the spring!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

A beautiful border that's In the Pink

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

The theme for the beautiful borders at the 2023 Gardeners’ World Live was ‘My Garden Escape’, but as ever they were bursting with inspiration and ideas, and lived up to their name of being beautiful.

This week I’m sharing the border designed by the Gardeners’ World presenter Sue Kent, titled In the Pink.

Pink is Sue’s favourite colour and she says that scented flowers are her joy and painting her escape. This border includes all three of these, and I correctly spotted the colour progression from bright pink to white pink, and includes roses and peonies, annuals and perennials and the odd vegetable too.

The spaces aren’t large, but it really does show what you can do in a small space. Even so, the colour progression was clear, so here’s a closer look at each end of the border.

Colour affects our energies and emotions, in this border Sue has created a space ‘for visitors to absorb and assess how that colour makes them feel’ - I know I left with a smile on my face.

But one last picture, the art and painting. Sue explained that painting was important to her, but she also needed something that would cope with all weather and wouldn’t spoil for the show. That ruled out paper and watercolours, as soggy paper wasn’t really the look. So she dug out her pink nail varnishes and a piece of glass and took it from there.

Brilliant, hey? And definitely beautiful. I so wish you could experience the beautiful smell for yourself!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

Enjoying being outside, and the blue skies!

Whatever you think about Facebook it’s great for getting to know what’s going on in your local area - it’s how I learnt about this Winter Wellbeing Walk hosted by the local FarmEco Community Farm. We knew about the farm (but not that much) as it’s in the same location as one of our favourite local cafes, and also where I get my hair done and where I’ve been for a massage or two. There’s also a gym there (not tried that) and a barbers, which MOH has tried too.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but thought we had nothing to lose and everything to gain by spending an hour or two walking on paths we’ve not yet discovered, getting to speak to some people we’ve not met before and even better, at the end of the walk there was a promise of a cuppa and a slice of cake.

And while we know that getting outside and reconnecting with nature is good for us, it’s not always that easy to do in the winter when the weather’s not so great. I’ve spoken before about Greenwich Park being my happy place, but truthfully it can be in nature anywhere - which given that we’ve moved approximately 150 miles from my happy place, is good news!

There was a group of eight of us on this walk, which was still a little spongy underfoot - wetter in some places than others, but with walking boots on it was manageable. Given just how wet the winter has been though, it was nowhere near as wet as it could have been. Along the walk we were encouraged to forage, and pick up things that caught our eye - this is my kind of walk, I love to explore what’s around me while we walk, not just march from A to B.

At our first pause to enable the group to get back together, we spotted our first snow drops of the year behind the barbed wire fence. It’s good to see them, as it surely signals that warmer weather is on the way.

Next to it was a tree that caught my eye - pine cones on a deciduous tree, that was confusing. It turns out it’s an alder and the small pine cones are the female catkins which stay on the tree all year round. Luckily there were some on the ground, so they went into my foraging bag.

It’s obvious but the more you look, the more you see - but you really do. The tree above has clearly been in the wars with the recent wind and storms, but asking our walk leader about the tree in the centre of the photo below, and why it would be planted on a mound, it was something he’d not noticed before despite walking here for many years. I’m pretty sure he’ll be finding out now - though I think it’s likely that this was done to improve/control the soil that the tree was planted in after a quick Google.

The footpath then led us across a field of sheep who were completely nonplussed by our arrival, but also quite nosey. Eventually they moved in the same way a moody teenager would so we could pass. I’m surprised though that a number of footpaths here are diagonally across fields, some we walked across but others which were wetter we stuck to the edges. I’d have thought farmers would much prefer people to keep to the edges, but I guess if a footpath is longstanding they could have very little say in that.

In between where we live and FarmEco is the RAF’s Central Gliding School and we quite often look up and see gliders, which can be extremely calming - and with the blue skies on Friday, that’s exactly what we saw as we looked up. MOH would be keen to give this a go, but I’m happy watching from the ground thank you very much.

With my observation skills switched on, and wanting to look at the blue skies for as long as I could, I spotted a rather large on/off switch at the top of this telegraph pole - and I’ve no idea if they all have them now or not.

But what a picture, my favourite of the day.

Arriving back at the farm and entering through one of the locked side gates we headed towards the labyrinth, an area well used for workshops and classes thoughout the year, though this year the central canopy/tent has yet to go up as the ground is still too soggy. I surprised myself by knowing the answer to what is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth - I strangely remember reading it in the few days before this walk. If you want to know then a labyrinth has a singular path which leads to the centre, whereas mazes have many paths, but not all of them lead to the centre.

With its red dogwoods and tall silver birches it already felt a special place, I’m sure as the seasons progress that intensifies. It was also good to learn that these silver birches were probably less than ten years old. I was curious as that afternoon we were off to pick up our ‘free tree’ as part of our council’s scheme for residents. We could choose up to two whips from either a hornbeam, cherry tree or silver birch - I’d opted for a single silver birch, which reminds me I need to plant that soon. It’s currently in a plastic bag in the garage but I think I’ll pot it up so it has the best chance, as it’s so tiny.

Anyway, back in the polytunnel and really feeling the warmth in there, it was time for tea and cake - and to explore our foraged items, which both MOH and I had picked up along the way. Thanks FarmEco for an enjoyable couple of hours.

And yes the pine cones, and the lichen covered stick came home with us!