Vicarage Garden Wall Protection

The other week the Engineer’s godmother, Song, invited the Vicar and I to join her at David Austin Roses on the Vicar’s day off. We enjoyed our visit very much – they have gardens full of beautiful fragrant roses and a great tearoom. And more than that, Song went away with a lovely pink rose [...]

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Vicarage Garden Result!

Well, a small one, anyway. Last year we bought some very cheap strawberry plants and stuck them in a flower bed where they failed to produce anything edible. This year, however, they have given us some sweet strawberries – a whole (small) bowlful. And we’ve been able to pick them at peak ripeness. Delicious. Please [...]

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Harvest Time at the Vicarage

Well, gooseberry harvest anyway. After all my panicking about mould, I am extremely pleased to report that our gooseberry bush has produced masses of fruit. So: the solution to American gooseberry mildew is to catch it early and chop it off. So far we’ve had about 4lb of fruit from the bush and there’s still [...]

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Sweet Garden

I just picked my first ever home-grown sweet peas this week. They look a little pathetic climbing the plastic trellis we have up – mostly they are sprawling around at knee height. I think I probably need to work on my gardening (and photography) techniques, but I’m still rather pleased with the result. Look: They [...]

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A Mouldy Day

I’d been getting all excited about our gooseberry bush. It is bursting with green berries. I had visions of gooseberry fool and pickles and pies and all sorts of yumminesses. And then this afternoon I saw it. MOULD. On the end of nearly every fruit-heavy branch. It seems that we have American Gooseberry Mildew. Just [...]

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Vicarage Bluebells

We recently went to visit the Engineer’s godmother on her family farm. We had a lovely walk up to a little wood where there are beautiful bluebells growing wild. She tells me that there are two types of bluebell that grow in the UK – wild English bluebells that are protected and special and Spanish [...]

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The Vicarage Garden goes Edible

It’s our second spring in the Vicarage and this year I am planning vegetables. I’ve been inspired by Alys Fowler and her Edible Garden series on BBC2 (tho’ I’ve not watched as much of it as I’d like due to a lack of tv licence and running out of broadband download). I would like her [...]

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The Vicarage Garden – Help needed

I am a gardening ignoramus. I know nothing about plants at all. And now I am (jointly) in charge of an old-fashioned garden with proper herbaceous borders filled with pretty flowers that are coming out in an impressively sequential manner. I don’t know what any of them are and I think it might be good [...]

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