My Guilty Pleasure

I know I shouldn't ....... I realise that we haven't even got Christmas out of the way yet but I just can't help myself! In between all the planning and preparations for the festive season, my mind keeps wandering ............ to all the wonderful seed catalogues for 2013 that I have been sneaking at peek at online!!!!!!

Over the last couple of years, I have started growing my own veg. It's been a very steep learning curve. I famously asked my wonderful friend (Andy !!) if the chitted potatoes I had planted would try and grow upside down if I had planted them the wrong way up. I'm fairly sure this caused a huge amount of hooting, snorting and riotous laughter on his part and I was very sceptical when he told me to just bung them in the ground and wait for them to grow. I mean ..... if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it! 

Over the last couple of years though, I have come to realise that basically, seeds just want to grow. As long as you give them the right conditions, water, light, heat and compost, they just get on and do it. It's fabulous and very rewarding although I have also realised that I have actually very little to do with it and that things will basically grow anywhere. I found that If you chuck a potato on the compost heap and leave it ...... it grows..... who'd have thought it :-)

Anyway, while the days are grim and grey, I'm planning what I'm going to plant next year. I dug a fabulous border in front of the fence I built earlier this year and I'm going to plant it with a variety of bee and butterfly friendly cottage garden plants.

The border I created this year when I put my fence up

I will be filling my raised beds with a delicious array of veg and I'm hoping to finally get hold of a greenhouse, possibly from an online auction site and, if possible, for a bargain price, so I can increase my tomato and cucumber crops .

The Raised bed I made last year

The raised beds I made this year.

I will also be putting down a million slug traps, the kind with beer in them. I don't use chemicals in my garden and the only other option, picking them off the plants and disposing of them, is a non-starter because I can't actually bring myself to pick the slimy little buggers up! It makes me feel quite queasy, so, slug traps it is and I particularly like this one ..... just for the novelty value :-)