The nursery rhyme goes, 'Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow, with silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row'. In this case, how does Lesley's garden grow - with a lot of bloody luck, success in only some instances and a summer where the weather in Wales was determined to screw me over.
I grew up in a tower block in Glasgow and never actually lived in a 'house' with a garden until 2001 when I was 33 years old so gardening and plants and flowers and the ability to grow things was/is something completely alien to me. Our first house, in Leatherhead, the garden we pretty much 'gave over to nature'! As in, we did nothing with it. There was a huge tree which kept the sun from the garden and we pretty much left the existing plants and bushes to their own devices - we did though properly have wildlife in the garden with lots of different birds, loads of butterflies and eventually hedgehogs, squirrels and for a short glorious time, baby fox cubs.
So,to Caerphilly. Been here for, coming up to, 5 years now and with the exception of a couple of summers ago when I tried to grow some flowers - and did have success - we have yet again pretty much ignored the garden. But no more! I'm fed up with the garden being a mess so this year as part of my challenge I was determined to keep the outdoor space tidy and neat and also wanted to see if I could grow something, anything!!!!! Decided to pretty much hedge my bets and to begin with I prepared some soil and some pots and planted wildflowers, a strawberry plant and some sunflowers.
Had to wait till mid May before I could prepare this as the weather had been pretty crap but eventually I did manage. I knew it was going to take some time before I'd see any results but when the seeds went in I was SO excited and I really have tried very hard. I've REALLY tried. Over the last few months I've kept these plants watered, I've fed them, I've visited and inspected them on a regular basis and I have to admit I have kind of chatted to them and offered them encouragement. Not going to lie, the chats have occurred mainly at the end of a day when I've had a glass of wine in my hand. Anyway, after about 4-6 weeks, things did start happening!
Unfortunately, at this point something went horribly wrong with the three pots of sunflowers. It seems that we had a few too many hungry slugs who I have now discovered really like the leaves of sunflower plants. So even though at this stage I was really excited and thought the plants looked really healthy, the slugs absolutely devoured them over the next few weeks so I ended up with nothing left in these wee pots. Thankfully I kind of realised it was happening so introduced a tomato plant in to the garden in the hope I'd still have 3 successes. The sunflower disaster has definitely pissed me off though, but next year......
Still, kept going and made sure to water and feed and check the plants and miraculously, from these green shoots, proper pretty plants started to develop and flourish. With the strawberry plant, it has always seemed really healthy and I've had a lot of strawberries begin to develop but it's a bit hit and miss as to whether I pick them in time or they start to wither. But, I've had 5 tasty and sweet strawberries which ain't a lot - but it's better than nothing!
The tomato plant I brought in to the mix late. I started it off in a pot, looked like it was overgrowing in the pot so replanted it in soil. I'm 'kind' of chuffed with this plant cos it looks really healthy and I have easily 20 plus tomatoes on the plant but unfortunately they are stubbornly staying green. I would love them to ripen and go red and become edible but I'm not sure it's going to happen. But, to me it's a healthy looking strong plant.
With the actual wildflowers. I LOVE these! Right from the beginning we didn't really know what to expect, these kind of scatter bags are complete lotteries. You don't entirely know what's going to be growing, or where, and that is very much part of the excitement and fun. But, the flower patch has really taken, the flowers are strong and wild, and they have been attracting bees all summer. On average there are 10 plus bees on these plants and the combination of flowers and colours pretty much seems to change on a regular basis.
So, growing strawberries, a sunflower, anything.....I'd say this has been a successful task. I've enjoyed it, it's been exciting and for sure this is something I'll be continuing. Next year's challenge definitely involves successfully growing sunflowers - that's my major mission - and I'd like to expand my range of pots and different things.
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