HGandG Blog - London, Paris, Milan, New Van!
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| London, Paris, Milan, New Van! |
| Fri, Jun 10, 2011 |
| Yes, a new van! Our first branded Home Grown & Gorgeous van will shortly be on the road.. It is shiny, black and new and will soon be adorned with our gorgeous logo and leafy design so look out for it in the local area. Currently parked next to the non-branded workhorse truck that has been my faithful companion up until now and is frankly looking like it needs a bit of tlc. Well the London, Paris, Milan bit is almost an indication of where we have been to recently (bar the Paris and Milan bits, when you wish upon a star and all that!). Yes, we have worked on a lovely traditional garden in Earlsfield recently and have 2 very happy clients and lots of interested neighbours, so hopefully we will be out there again. I have fallen back in love with the small city garden. So much can be achieved over a short time with a modest budget and the small borders ensure an instant planting effect using just a small number of plants. The attached pictures show the process. We are super busy with our regular weekly customers at the moment. Our kitchen garden clients are experiencing a mass spurt of growth with their veggies and I can't wait to take some mature stage photos - I love a fully planted kitchen garden with all the textures and green colours, delightful! However I have spotted today what looks like the first sign of potato blight so will be keeping a close eye on the progress. This warm weather with plenty of recent rain could be the trigger for a surge in cases so watch out for the signs - brown, crinkled patches on potato and tomato leaves, spreads quickly, sometimes black marks on the tomato plant stems. If you suspect it, then quickly remove the offending foliage - with the potatoes you can cut the foliage right to the ground and still protect your potatoes. Ideally burn the foliage to prevent the spores spreading, this is a wind borne disease so you must be quick with your detection and action. It is also container time of year and we have eventually emptied out the polytunnel of all summer plants and they are now growing happily in our client's gardens. Last autumn/winter's plantings were still looking fabulous, they really are a good investment in terms of the length of time that they produce a good show, but its all change now and we've had some great results from our cut flower seeds so are looking forward to some wonderful displays as the summer progresses (Sarah Raven for seeds if you are interested). We are planning on offering a container service next year - with quarterly visits and twice yearly re-planting. We like to use unusual and quirky plants for our pots so I am ensuring I photograph this years specimens ready for some advertising at the beginning of 2012. And so to my polytunnel, it is now, rather selfishly, full of produce for my own use - yippee! I planted tomato seedlings in Feb (Franchi seeds) and have some really strong plants now with flowers forming so I am anticipating gorgeous Italian tomatoes - if that were the only thing I ever grew then I would be happy! I also have the obligatory courgette plant surplus - please shout if you want one and you can have it with pleasure! Caversham people only please, am not planning on travelling across the UK with a courgette plant in transit (even though it would give me the opportunity to show off the van!) Happy June! Solstice is on the horizon... Teej One more thing... even though it is the garden's enemy (well, according to me), my Mile a Minute vine has been home to 2 families of blue tits, 1 chaffinch and 1 blackbird - we are all glued to the back window watching the action, Springwatch eat your heart out. |
