Nature as garden designer

It's been a while since we were down in Leitrim - for many reasons beyond our control. I'll confess that it's been a bit 'out of sight, out of mind'. As I haven't been able to be there, I've left nature in charge of garden design this year - and she's been VERY busy!

We took the poly tunnel down at the end of March and apart from one trip in the end of April (in which Sam had the accident with his finger) we didn't make it down until late August.

The first pictures below are of the blank canvas that we left nature with once we'd taken the tunnel down.

It's quite bare, with uncovered paths between the beds.

Here you can see where the trenches were.

Well, upon our return ... this is what we saw ...

Nature has been busy indeed.

Even though it may be a bit wilder than I would have chosen, some of it does look really pretty - the sunflowers are all self seeded - everything is.

The birds are really loving it (especially with no cats around). I love the combinations nature has made e.g. red orach, sunflowers and nasturtiums.

The sunflowers are really very cheerful and welcoming (and helped me face the inevitable job of weeding and clearing paths).

The kale nero, planted last September has survived and I collected some seed.

There was even a Russian Mammoth Sunflower, which had bent over to survive the winds (last year they reached to the top of the tunnel).

Here's more sunflowers - as I like them so much - and the natural variations that are springing up. I only planted Russian Mammoth and Red Velvet last year and these seem to be a mix of both.

My calendula and Melissa have survived well.

Here I am with a few weeds .. at the end I'll show you just how many!

A potted blueberry bravely gave us a few berries.

There were even two mystery giant swedes (and tomatoes!)

The mint has been having great fun - spreading like wildfire - under natures watchful eye.

The red orach has seeded well - I just LOVE the colour of it, so vibrant.

There was masses of seed from the Pentland Kale - and I collected a fair amount.

Some, touching the ground, had even started sprouting in their pods!

Here is a delight - some quinoa - ripening very well too.

Here I've done some clearing .. and Sally is helping.

More clearing.

Even more clearing .. I can see gravel again now.

Here's the side of the 'tunnel bed' reclaimed.

While I was busy weeding, next door, they were bailing the grass - and a great job they made of it too.

Unfortunately that wasn't an option for us up top, where natures scheme was a bit too wild for the likings of most people - so Sam had to get strimming.

We had a lovely red shy that evening.

But not before Sam had done more strimming ..

..and a but more strimming...

and made sure the frogs DIDN'T get strimmed.

So, here with are with a neater frontage again

and a serious pile of weedy stuff - all barrowed by yours truly.

We still don't know when the planning permission will come through, so have no idea when we can resume building. I must admit to being disappointed in losing the whole summer and facing the dropping temperatures and longer nights now. It can all seem a long way off - us being in our lovely warm home, but I know we will get there in the end - and it will be fantastic when we do.

In the meantime, we'll keep a better eye on the garden - and myself and nature may return to a joint gardening effort from now on.

Latest building and planting progress

Leo seems to have found the catmint I brought down for him, just as it starts to grow again. That's one happy cat.

Time shoots on and I thought I'd better give an update before I forget what we've been up to. I'll also show some progress pics.

We really did so well with having Neil over for two weeks of hard graft. As well as the highlight of 'studding' they got loads done.

First the plasterboarding of the downstairs ..

They nearly made it look easy!

Then the erection of that shed. It now holds the pressure vessel for our borehole .. the blue pipe is where our water comes out. So, we now sort of have running water!

There is also the marvel of the 'portable' chicken house made entirely from scrap wood (seen here being treated with preservative by my good self).

It was so cold at night in the house recently I though of kipping in the chicken shed myself!
In theory the chicken house is portable, but in practice it is a bit of a struggle - with two people .. but it is VERY sturdy!

It is rumoured that quite soon we will have some chickens to go in it .. and even sooner there may be a couple of ducks (Khaki Campbells - the best egg layers) to test run it - until they get their own house.

Anyway, this week I've finally got on with some seed sowing (and ordered my severely oversized polytunnel!). I've sown tomatoes, sweet peppers, chilli's and melon. First I sprouted them for 24hours in tepid water (it works for sprouted seeds for eating, so I think it will help the seeds germinate quickly), ... I had a lot of varieties so had each variety in water in a tea light case and put them all in eggboxes ..

then I put them in damp compost in seed trays and took them around to my lovely neighbour Jenny, who is kindly letting me start them off in her wonderfully warm airing cupboard - thank you Jenny! The hot water bottle propagator is not forgotten though - I'll get that up and running to keep the chill off the seedlings when they are little. The polytunnel is due to arrive in a couple of weeks, so should be offering them some protection pretty soon afterwards.

The rest of my potatoes went into car tyres and old compost bags and next up for planting will be the jerusalem artichokes and Oca (other odd tubers).

I also had some edible seeds sprouting - alfalfa (which suffered in the cold), aduki beans and sunflowers. As usual, I felt guilty eating the sunflowers (I keep imagining all those sunflowers that would never be if I ate them - silly, but true) so I potted up some of the more advanced ones.

Some of the aduki beans were pretty advanced too (had sprouted little leaves and had good roots) so I potted some of them up too in the hope of getting a crop this summer.

Work on the house has slowed a bit this week (we're suffering from the loss of Neil - he was such a hard worker .. I fear we are slacking a bit!) and we seem to be mostly moving wood about so we can move more plasterboard in.

It has been really wet the past couple of days, so the pond is filling well. Here is an earlier pond pic.

It may just look like a big clay puddle to you, but to me it holds great mystical charm. I am utterly amazed at how captivating a body of water can be (I've never had a pond before - could you guess?). There are already water boatmen and other creatures finding it and when the sun shines I could spend my entire day just gazing into it. I love how the sky reflects in it, how you can see the wind and rain affecting it (whilst sitting dry in the house), how the refections change when you see it from a different angle. I'm looking forward to getting a few pond plants in and getting more life in there.





Finally, we've had an article about the house posted in the county paper - the Leitrim Post - and .. it was all good (they found out about it from the blog apparently).




Well, it isn't everyday a house appears in 12 hours. People are still stopping buy for a look, even now.