Welcome to Hobbitland, or at least my little part of it. In Birmingham, England. For the benefit of new and future readers, this is a patch of land. A vegatable pot, rented from the local council for, the cultivation, funnily enough of fruit, veg, and flowers.

What started off as 100 square metres, is now 200 square metres. I took on the second half last year, and to be fair at that point; it felt as though I was running out of space.

There have been perils and puddles, you can read all about them in the past posts. But now, the plot is starting to get going properly. The amount of things you learn, is phenonemonal. Yet one growing season won’t necessarily be the same as the next.

The black and white diagram that you see above, is something of an annual exerise. An opportunity to plan out and prepare for next spring. Each of the squares is either a raised bed or a bed in open ground. The shaded boxes, are the smaller wendy house and the large 2m x 3m Polytunnel. The polytunnel is currently home to a clutch of Chilli Pepper plants.

As it stands, now is time for me to tidy up the plot and to also grow over wintering crops such as garlic. Sadly, there are times where the British Winter does get in the way. Come to think of, the summer also gets in the way too. Especially when it is wet, windy, and downright drab. At the moment, the one bed does have garlic in it. There is also fenugreek and spinach still cropping, as well as lovely red vulcan chard. In years passed, I have at this time of the year sunk lots of bulbs for the spring. However, I am happy for now to have roses up and down the plot. There two dozen, perhaps, roses, that in the height of summer have produced fantastic blooms. I concede that they are not really edible. But what would an English Garden be without a few roses. There is even one called William Shakespeare 2000.  As well as would be posh roses, there are some less posh ones. Some from a poundshop, some that are mysteries entirely. They are lost label roses, and could be anything. All of them will be pruned in the coming months to help them regenerate for next year.

You might have observed that there are some fruit trees. I have forgetton, to label the rhubarb. Most of these trees are two-three years old. I have victoria plum, braeburn and falstaff apple, rochester peach, a cherry tree the name of which escapes me. Concorde pear as well. The plot is home to one domesticated ‘Reuben’ Blacberry. In being domestic, this is thornless. Wild blackberries are full thorns and will tear you to shreds. I am lucky that the plot is edged on the far side by such wild blackberries. These have been jammed quite a bit this year.