Tuesday 20 January 2009

Turning our London garden to production




I am in the unusual situation of living in the North East but working in London. As a result, we have a flat in London where I stay when I am in the capital. The flat itself in in a block of two, with ours as the downstairs. It comes with a reasonable size front and back garden and the people upstairs aren't interested in doing anything with their part. They have left us to get on with looking after it. As part of my plan for 2009, I intend cultivating the garden to grow fruit and veg, but also to demonstrate that there is much that can be done to supplement your food supply in a suburban garden.



There is however a great deal of work to be done in getting the garden up to scratch. Whilst over the years I have planted a reasonable number of fruit bushes, much of the garden has had only modest maintenance. Much of the space has been wasted: a derelict shed occupies one corner (it belongs to upstairs, not us but the residents above don't have a problem with our removing it at some point). We also have a huge rhododendron plant next to the shed and next to both was a pile of garden waste, mainly branches, that had been added to over the years.



I was down in London over the weekend so we made a start. We had a bonfire to get rid of the garden waste. Much to my delight, we shifted the whole lot. Next to go will be the rhododendron.


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