Adjustment from three allotments to one section of our back garden has proved to be slow. I have some good memories of our successes in the first year. There were the squashes by our bay windows, cherry tomatoes bought in from our local college, french beans, broad beans, herbs and our soft fruit. But things are getting better.
This year my husband sowed his own tomatoes and the greenhouse is full of those reliable standards Harbinger and Moneymaker. The squash are back - both our own 'allotment' variety and seeds saved from a supermarket butternut squash have germinated. Basil is now thriving on our kitchen windowsill and parsley in terracotta pots on our patio. I rescued a sturdy mint from the superstore for a pound and it is coming on well. Broad beans are flowering at last, pollinated by the bumble bees which I suspect are nesting in a bird box next door (I shall not be mentioning this to our neighbour). And there is the always reliable rocket.
This year, I am not quite so much 'wait and see'. I do not have the luxury of space. I am uprooting weak plants such as sickly beans, and watering healthy ones. I am pulling up rosebay willowherb whenever I see it. I am successionally sowing rocket so there is more to follow on of this lovely peppery salad. I shall be netting our soft fruit promptly and not providing a feast for the wood pigeons.
Once I had a dream that we would pioneer back garden vegetable growing. In this era people would ask us and we would show them just how much can be achieved with application, rotation and a selection of raised beds. But whether that happens or not, I shall keep on gardening intentionally and intensively.
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