Box scheme

I've decided this year it's all about the garden, the business is going to follow the garden rather than the other way round. I'm just so excited about this garden, it's so different from any garden I've ever had or imagined and I just want to make it beautiful. And low maintenance. And all for cutting. And super productive. All feels possible.

So first it's to boxes. As I moved so may plants, lots of boxes/crates were involved. And lots are still involved. I found a lot of secondhand plastic plant (or other uses probably) crates and moved loads of plants in them, and now I'm using lots of them for emergency growing. I don't have tulips at the new garden, though still have tens of thousands at the old garden which I hope will be appearing here (sent in more boxes) soon, but I needed to have some of my favourites here so hurled them into the plastic crates. There are a few lines of crates strewn about the gardens so far.....

But most plants were moved in potato boxes, secondhand of course - people who know me know I'm a rather keen recycler. And these are a godsend. It has been so bloody wet and vile that cultivating the field next to the garden has become rather a joke. I sprayed off a bit, finally, in ancitipation of cultivation, but I just don't want to get any machinery on to the patch as it will make a hideous claggy puddled clay mass not far below the surface and I'll just be storing up problems. So it will just have to wait until everything has dried up, maybe it will be in waiting for months. And the main patch will definitely have to wait for many months as I do not want to start off by creating a whole heap of future problems. So the solution to getting some annuals going has to be elsewhere. It's boxes. I've filled some with leaf mould/grass clipping compost which I'm topping off with gold dust compost from the proper domestic compost pile (beautifully rotted now for three years) and sowing little spot crops of annuals while other ground gets happier. I've made plastic covers for warmth and I'll raise them on cloche hoops when they appear. Mini tunnels I reckon.

The peonies which I moved from the other garden are coming up beautifully. Unfortunately there is a secret weapon at loose in the garden. She likes the peony bed more than anywhere else, and new shoots seem a bit of a draw. Oh and that was my favourite sheepskin boot in the picture.....