After so much chatter about ‘the garden’ I thought it was about time I took some photos so people had an idea of what I’m talking about. From some of the comments I receive it’s obvious that some people think I have a garden the size of a football pitch, the reality is quite the opposite.
First a little background. The garden is shared with the upstairs neighbours, they have half and I have half. When I moved to the flat my half consisted of 2 rose bushes, a fuchsia and enough grass to keep a small goat entertained for the summer months. The neighbours have a small man made pond and have used old pallets as decking to have a nice area to sit out in, more-so because of overhanging trees. They asked me if I it was OK for them to use pallets as decking for part of my half of the garden and given I didn’t have to contribute any labour I said yes!
The End result was better than I expected. I had often discussed growing a few veggies and so they managed to deck half, add a water feature using an old zinc iron bath and leave me some soil to plant with. The growing I attempted last year when i grew potatoes, basil and mint.
This year i decided on red onions and I noticed 3 potato plants sprouting from last year so I thought I’d just add basil and garlic to join the already flourishing mint. As you know from previous entries. Cats have been using my soil as a toilet so I decided to use green plastic mesh to cover it, little did I know that when a cat wants to go, it’ll go!!
So here is the view from outside the kitchen door. The mint is growing in the bottom right of the photo, the fuchsia on the bottom middle is just starting to turn green after spending the winter disguised as a bundle of twigs. Notice my failed vodka tree nestling between them? I planted that bottle last year but sadly still nothing! And there you’ll see to the bottom left where a cat had a shit, right in the middle of the mesh?! You can also see the 3 potato sprouts at the top left of the soil patch, then hiding behind all that greenery (weeds!) lies the old metal batch with some plant life in there too and the the ‘decked’ area.
Now, here is the view of the neighbours half and my half. Notice the rose bush in my half and the overhanging trees in their half? I used to have a lot of trouble in my half with ivy from next door but thankfully they ripped up the trees last year, I wish i had pictures from when i moved in, it was a nightmare!! I picked up the bamboo lantern from B&Q and it’s nice in the summer as there is a bit of a barbecue in the neighbours half, built into the pond, so we sometimes sit out and citronella oil in the lantern keeps the mossies away (well i did sit out with the old neighbours, I assume the new ones will be just as social)
And finally here is the neighbours pond. If you look over to the left you’ll see the outline of a table. Bridgette made it by using mosaic tiles over an old cable reel. That’s where the little fire/barbecue are is. It’s more a fire area but with some metal grill it suddenly becomes a barbecue area! These three photos were taken on 10 May 2006
So, six days later and with the aid of some sunshine and some rain the garden is looking good. Here you can see where the red onions are sprouting and there on the right is one of the cats who visits the garden. I should explain that i do encourage the local stray cats to visit the garden as I usually leave a dish of fresh water or milk out and in the evenings usually leave out some fish for them, on the odd occasion one of the neighbours cats comes to scoff the lot!
Here the rose bushes are flourishing, I’ve already snipped a few off which brighten up the kitchen, even tho I use an empty milk bottle as my vase of choice!
Here two of the local cats have a little chat over whose food supply this is, I have to intervene and give both a lecture on how if they both share neither of them goes without and eventually they decided that it made sense. Notice it had just been raining.
I haven’t attached names to the marmalade/tabby moggy that you see sitting by the pond. She was a bit reluctant to the let the black and white cat, who i call Smudge, anywhere near the tuna I had put out, so I put some in a separate dish and she relented and let smudge eat from that one while she looked on, when he had finished she then resumed eating ‘her’ portion. By the way, I’ve never figured out the sex of the cats, I’ve just ascribed my own gender to them based on their attributes…
Comments are closed.