Twice a year, I put on my coat, pull on my wellies, and climb out of the bedroom window… to go gardening!
Yes, last month was time (if slightly overdue as usual), for the bi-annual weeding our lovely green roof. Continue reading
“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself” – May Sarton.
Personally I like to think my life so far has fortunately been a series of triumphs set against a few disasters. But the jury is definitely still out when it comes to our new veg beds!
Certainly in this first year, there have been more triumphs than losses, which is nice. But this is probably mostly because we are still easily pleased! Continue reading
Last month didn’t just mark our anniversary of moving to The Secret Acre, it was of course also harvest time.
The UK’s national Apple Day (yes, there is one) is actually on 21st October.
And so during October community groups up and down the country hold a range of apple pressing and harvest celebration events. Continue reading
And another year goes by. So last month I put up two curtain poles and a washing line at The Secret Acre. Because October marked our first year anniversary of moving in. And rather embarrassingly these were the last of the ‘quick’ jobs still undone from that very first month!
But missing curtain poles aside, October was a chance for us to reflect on the good and bad points of our first year. Fortunately, perhaps, our positives and negatives were remarkably similar. Continue reading
The Secret Acre used to have three ponds. Continue reading
Another quick update from the veg patch. Our onion and potato harvests were in recently.
The onions were most satisfying, because they are another of those vegetables that we never bothered growing before, when we were container growing in a small city backyard.
The potatoes were more of a relief. We had always grown a sack or two of potatoes in the backyard. A regular and reliable staple. But now, properly in the soil for the first time, they looked decidedly less healthy, and we were worried they had failed. Continue reading
We’ve been away from The Secret Acre for two weeks on honeymoon. Before we left we took the precaution of picking and eating all the courgettes. But these buggers grow fast, and on our return we were greeted by four massive marrows already the size of torpedoes!
In August’s issue of Home Farmer magazine their advice on growing courgettes to marrow size was simply “don’t do it!” So faced with our honeymoon marrows, anyone else got any good (and preferably tasty!) suggestions?
Half way there
Rebuilding the stables and pig stys in the Yard at The Secret Acre is on the long list of big renovation jobs to get round to eventually. Hopefully before they finally fall down!
But the concrete base that forms the Yard oddly stopped short of running the full length of the outbuildings, petering out into a rather unstable set of York Stone slabs placed on the grass. Continue reading
“Weed it and reap” is an old garden saying, and although we might be behind in the weeding of our new veg beds, no sooner had our first veg arrived than it seemed we were suddenly reaping a glut of veg.
Including, pleasingly, some vegetables like beetroot and cabbages, which we hadn’t tried growing before when we were container growing in our small backyard previously. Continue reading
Another of the joys at The Secret Acre in making a start on the garden this year has been unexpected discoveries of some of the things already lurking in the undergrowth.
But we were still surprised by our unexpected wheat harvest.
In a neglected grass verge overdue the attentions of the strimmer, two ears of wheat proudly emerged, presumably from seeds blown in from a nearby farmer’s field!
The Secret Acre 