The garden is looking amazing

We have been working on this garden for nine years now. When we moved in it just had the concrete path and a lawn. Bit by bit we took the lawn out and planted.

We put the arches in and planted them to screen us from the neighbours. Later the chicken run followed and the veg plot was moved. It has evolved with time. The things we have planted have matured.

The concrete path now needs replacing as it is cracked and loose in places. We would like to get that done next but are struggling to find someone to take on the job.

The garden is looking amazing though and gives us a lot of pleasure.

This is looking good

We look out of our kitchen window at this, where once there was a bare expanse of fence.

Yellow poppies are pretty even when closed in the shade

The yellow poppies open in the sun

I love the girlies watching me as I go up the garden

The garden is so full and lush

There are lots of textures and shapes

Looking down from the chicken run towards the patio

The patio is surrounded by greenery

Over the arches on the right and over the cabin roof behind the patio furniture is the rose that we had as a moving in gift from a friend. It is now huge and is at the moment a mass of bud. It will look glorious in the coming weeks and I will take photos again once it is in flower. I always think of the patio area as a little oasis.

Looking over the veg plot

There is a lot of green at the moment but there is a lot of colour to come. We planted something in flower every month of the year in the first year to give us some colour all year round.

The potatoes are now up

Today we filled the potato bags to the top with soil to give a maximum potato crop.

The dwarf beans are up too

This is the first year we have grown dwarf beans instead of runner beans. The veg plot always gives us something to look forward to. We never know which crops will do the best in each year.

The girl’s dandelion patch

Even the girl’s dandelion patch is looking lush. The beauty of this is that I keep picking the leaves for the girls and it just keeps on growing back again. They can have these leaves all year round.

I once tried to grow grass for the girls in trays but it didn’t work because they scratched the roots but this gives them a year round supply of leaves to top up the other greens that I give them.

You can see Peaches and Barley looking hopeful of getting a few leaves through the wire. When I hold the leaves through the wire the girls peck at them as if they are starved. They absolutely love them and it keeps their egg yolks a lovely deep orange colour. We are not the only ones happy with the garden and of course we also benefit from the lovely eggs that the girls give us.