That was the year that was...

And what a year! 

This time in 2010, I was considering taking voluntary redundancy.  I'm glad I did; I could never have imagined how good my course at Reaseheath would be, and certainly had no idea that I would have the opportunity to work on the building of a large show garden at RHS Tatton Park, and then to discuss it with visitors to the show.  Definitely the horticultural highlight of the year.

"The Secret Garden" by Reaseheath College

OK, so we felt a bit robbed to get a Silver medal (we thought Silver Gilt, and Carol Klein on BBC Gardeners' World also hinted that we'd done better than perhaps the judges had assessed), but the actual experience of working in a great team on such a gorgeous project, and seeing how Carol Adams and Louise from the college designed and organised the planting, was the best possible inpiration for a gardening career.

The build team (those present on the last day before judging)

At home, the garden and allotment emerged quickly from a freezing winter to a warm spring, but we seemed to get the only rain for miles around through the summer.  While everyone else fretted about drought, I regularly tipped an inch or so out of the rain gauge every couple of days.  We did really well for salad leaves and got the best potato harvest ever, short on slug damage even to the Highland Burgundy Reds.  The tomatoes were good, once they got going, the squashes and pumpkins reasonable considering the lack of summer sunshine, and the onions excellent.  As usual, the carrots were a waste of space.

Onion crop drying in our allotment shed

The fruit crop was amazing - a fair bit of the soft fruit went to feed the two broods of blackbirds, but we had more top fruit than we could handle.  The freezer is still full of frozen plums (especially the Oolins Orange, which cropped well for the first time ever due to mild weather at flowering time), and I was even able to sell the excess pears, though with hindsight I suspect I may have made more money selling them from the front gate with an "honesty box" than via the farm shop.  Lesson learned!

There were flowers too - the front garden looked good until the poppies faded, but hopefully next year the perennials will have filled out a bit and there will be more autumn colour.

Then the decision to go "self-employed".  The business plan for this year is essentially "don't actually lose any money"!  At least I know - after Kevin's garden - that I need not be afraid of quite overgrown sites.  New adverts will go up in the local shops next week, and maybe I'll get a few customers.  I have a veg garden project to do with some other former work friends and some likely venues for car boot sales of herbs (definitely not back to the farm shop with them!), and my second set of RHS level 2 exams in February.

Happy 2012!

Midwinter madness

Well, here we are at the shortest day of the year.  Last year, we were snowed in with frozen pipework, without a functioning washing-machine for a month.  This year is a bit different.

At RHS Wisley on Friday (16th December) we were buzzed by a huge bumble bee foraging about in camellias in flower.  Still, that is 200 miles south of here.

Camellia at Wisley in mid-December

But this afternoon at Great Haywood (near Stafford) we spotted a bumble bee taking a rest in the sunshine on the bow rope of a narrowboat!  Hardly surprising when there are still plenty of late summer flowers in bloom - I still have Calendulas, Antirrhinums and Fuchsias in full flower, plus the Hellebores (these are completely confused and have been flowering since September). 


Even the zonal Pelagonium which I've so far neglected to move into the greenhouse is still growing healthily out of the patio table (must move it in tomorrow though!).  It'll be interesting to see how early (or not) the spring bulbs are, and if we get too little frost for a decent crop of rhubarb.