A Bit about my New Kingdom.

I realize since moving to this new house with it's 2 gardens I haven't posted on it. The house has 2 gardens a back and a front, the back is the biggest, it's south facing and where my Grandad used to plant all his greens. However as mentioned in an earlier post my Grandad left this Earth before I was born so the garden hasn't been producing veg for over 26 years. Instead my Grandma was a big fan of anything that flowers so both gardens are now full of bulbs, bedding plants, shrubs and one lawn the size of a postage stamp. As well as these there are 2 holly bushes which the birds love (but I don't) and an Ivy which started growing up a washing line pole but has now taken over the entire garden wall.



This garden is great for the wildlife and I want to keep it that way but more in harmony with the productivity I want to bring to it. It's gonna be hard work as it's so overgrown now. Currently I've began removing the bedding plants and daffodils, I don't want to get rid of them as my Gran loved them to I've found some neglected pots lying around so, with some fresh compost I've added the plants to the pots, they look lovely sat on the door steps.









The front garden is probably less than half the size, North facing and encircled by a privet hedge. It's pretty dark but looks out over a council bowling green where the staff actively encourage wildlife so we get lots of bird and of course Bill the squirrel. In fact at the moment we have a pair of blue tits looking at making their nest in the air vent next to or bedroom window. Anyway this garden is just full of snow drops, bedding plants and a hydrangea. To be honest I really don't know what to do here besides trimming the hedge and finding some shade loving crops, maybe I'll try forcing some rhubarb here. It would be a shame to make all the snow drops homeless though.

New Lemon Tree and Mushroom Growing too.

I hate Ikea, but the other day I saw some thing that didn't require delivery, assembly or an allen key. It was a lemon tree, just a couple of feet tall and costing £20. But something bothered me and that was all the signs around them saying "fruit is not edible" and "please do not  eat the fruit". I went home to read up on why this is. I suspected it was just to stop people stealing the fruit as I has never heard of a purely ornamental lemon tree. Reading on the Grow Your Own forum http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/  a person had the same experience at Aldi and the experts say it is because the tree and fruit has probably been sprayed with pesticides and other nasties but after the fruit growing in store has gone further fruit will be fine. Great we went out again and brought our lemon tree home and named it Jonny, after a friend who used to call himself Mr Lemon.

Something bothered me though and that was the size of the pot Jonny was crammed into, poor thing. It's roots had emerged on the surface, this is the sign of a pot-bound tree. So off I went to my local garden center (I tried The Range first but word of advice, they're useless) to buy citrus compost. You should plant citrus plants in special compost because they are very picky. A pH of 6.5 is ideal,they don't like acid or alkaline very much at all. It also needs to drain well. They also need feeding often especially in the summer. For now Jonny lives indoors in the corner of my living room but in summer He'll probably go live on the step outside the door.

My next little (indoor) project at the moment is mushrooms. Chestnut mushrooms to be exact. I bought a little kit from The Range for £3.99 which is a good price as they're usually about £8. Maybe you pay for what you get but we'll find out. The kit is basically just a box with a lid, wet compost and substrate covered in mushroom spores. Follow the instructions, keep moist, warm and dark and wait for the mushrooms. I tried one of the little kits from the pound shop before and they are good, mushrooms only take a couple of weeks to pop up. Can't wait chestnut mushrooms are great in a stir fry or risotto.

Photos will be added when the mushrooms grow but for now I thought this was funny ^