I didn’t expect much from three of my four new raised beds this year.

I bought them back in February, and together with my partner Matt we assembled them and sited them on grass in the back garden. To fill them I ordered a bulk delivery of 50 bags of vegetable topsoil, which was duly delivered, and we also had numerous bags of homemade compost that we brought with us from our previous home when we moved.

I naively assumed that this would be more than enough to fill the new beds, but we very soon realized that it would not. Not even close.

I wanted one of the beds to have deep, loose soil to grow carrots and parsnips, so we completely filled one with a mixture of the topsoil and compost. To my astonishment after doing this we only had a few bags left - obviously a serious miscalculation!

I didn’t want to order another bulk delivery, so we decided to use what we could find around the garden. There were several log-piles among trees in the wilder parts of the garden, so we used a few logs from each in the bottom of the beds. Then we just added any suitable material we could find, including leaf litter, fallen twigs, pine needles and cones, wood chip, shredded cardboard, vegetation raked from the surface of the pond, grass cuttings, mole hill soil, etc. We finally got them filled, and finished each bed off with quite a thin layer of the topsoil mixed with compost.

Because of this my expectations for this year were low. I thought that these materials would need time to break down, and that plant roots would not grow well in this coarse, open, heterogeneous material. I resigned myself to having minimal success this year, and planned to add homemade compost to the beds later in the year so they would be much more productive next year.

But I could not have been more wrong!

The photo below was taken in early April, just after planting. The bed on the right at the front is the deep-filled one, sown with rows of carrot and parsnip seeds (yet to germinate when the photo was taken), together with some spinach seeds and a few herb plants. The one on the left at the front has a couple of rows of dwarf pea seedlings, with some posts to support them. I then, rather foolishly I now think, added some seed potatoes on either side of the peas, thinking it was very unlikely that they would grow.

The photo below shows the bed on the left now, just two months later. And just look at it - positively exploding with growth!

I have never grown potatoes before, and had no idea they would grow like this. Of course it could be all leaves and no spuds! And harvesting them (and the pea pods) is going to be a bit of challenge - but a fun challenge to have!

Similarly, the photo below shows one of the other two beds, which I planted with spinach and onion seeds together with a few herbs and companion flowers. This one is now a bit depleted because I have been harvesting the spinach twice a week for the last month, and also now have a whole drawer full of frozen spinach in the freezer. I have never had success with spinach before, but this grew so fast I just couldn’t keep up with harvesting it!

There is no doubt that gardening is a never-ending learning curve. And this year has been a particularly steep one for me, with a new garden that could not be more different to my previous one. Next year there are definitely things I will do differently, like plant/sow less densely and keep potatoes separate.

Sometimes, when you think you have done everything right, your plants inexplicably don’t thrive and you are disappointed. But other times, when your expectations are low, magic happens!

Many years ago I bought my partner Matt some chili pepper seeds as a gift (he loves chilies). The seeds grew in pots on the kitchen window ledge, the chilies later ripened in the garden, and they were impressively hot.

Flushed with success (and capsaicin) I decided to try growing some lettuce. It was too late in the year to start from seed, so I bought a punnet of young lettuce plants at a local garden centre. After planting them in bowls of all-purpose compost, they started to grow well.

Then one day I realised I had forgotten to buy a bag of salad leaves, so I reluctantly cut all the biggest leaves off my young lettuce plants and used those. They were lovely — so much fresher and crisper than the usual bagged salad leaves. But I was really sad that I had already used up my young plants when they were just starting to grow.

But then, only a few days later, I was amazed that the leaves had almost regrown! It was like magic! How could they grow so quickly?

I suddenly understood the concept of ‘cut and come again’, and it was a complete revelation. From that moment, I was totally hooked. Growing edible plants became an obsession, which has stayed with me to this day.

There is something I should mention here. Before my obsession with food growing, I HATED gardening. I loathed getting my hands dirty (gardening gloves solved that issue). I have mobility problems which make bending to work in the ground painful and difficult (containers and raised beds helped with that one). And I was always working to tight deadlines, and wanted to spend my free time visiting interesting places, not struggling with weeds and dirt in the garden.

So from being an avid non-gardener, I suddenly had dreams of becoming self-sufficient in salads, herbs, vegetables, and fruit. Matt and I are not vegetarians, but our diet is predominantly plant-based. We love salads, vegetarian pasta dishes, and vegetarian curries. I thought how great it would be to grow most of our food in our own garden. How it would be so fresh, contain no chemicals, and be great for the environment. And I spent the next few years trying to achieve just that.

Now, I don’t do things by halves. From having no interest in the garden whatsoever, I was suddenly acquiring potting tables, raised planters, containers by the dozen, trellises, automatic watering systems, and ultimately a greenhouse and potting shed.

I completely lost count of how many bags of compost I got through in those early years, but visits to local garden centres became a very regular event indeed. (These days I compost our kitchen and garden waste at home to produce our own.)

And I spent hours perusing online seed catalogues, amazed by the sheer number of varieties available to home growers. This is one of the great benefits and joys of home growing — being able to try varieties you will never find in the shops because they are not suitable for packing and transporting on a commercial scale.

Of course, despite my limitless enthusiasm and early successes, I very soon found out that growing your own food is not always plain sailing.

At first, I was way too ambitious. I tried to grow far too many plants in containers that were far too small. They ended up being over- or under-watered (and in many cases, I couldn’t decide which).

My salads got badly infested with aphids. My brassicas were attacked by slugs, flea beetles, and cabbage white caterpillars. Our lovely blackbirds took to rummaging through my pots looking for worms and often threw my carefully nurtured young seedlings out in the process. Storms resulted in pots being blown over or flooded. I soon learned that gardening tests your ingenuity, as I strove to devise methods to protect my plants from the weather and local pests without doing any harm to wildlife.

Also, much of my modestly sized Yorkshire garden didn’t receive full sun, and some of it received hardly any. Many plants didn’t thrive in conditions that were simply not suitable for them.

In those early years, I had a LOT of complete failures, and my initial enthusiasm was definitely tested. I often wondered why I was bothering, especially at the end of the season when so many things needed cutting back and clearing away (cleaning out moldy, root-bound, slug-riddled pots is not a job I enjoy).

But I had invested a lot of time and effort (and money) and was determined not to be put off. And despite the failures, there were some notable successes.

Tomato plants were a complete revelation. They grew so incredibly fast to the point of becoming completely rampant (it took me a while to get the hang of managing cordon varieties). But the plants were really productive, even with less than perfect care, and the tomatoes were sweet and lovely, unlike anything from a supermarket.

Unlike many edible plants tomatoes are largely left alone by the slugs and birds. The main difficulty was devising ways to support the weight of the fruit, and watering evenly to prevent splitting. Even now I get excited selecting new varieties to try each year, and harvesting them in the summer months is one of my great joys.

Runner beans were another delight. Once I got them started they literally flew up a trellis on my garage wall. They produced massive crops of beans that were lovely sliced up quite thinly and used in pasta dishes. I filled whole drawers in my freezer to keep me supplied all winter and into the following spring.

Other successes included strawberries, blueberries, chard, and aubergines. Over the years I have learned what works in my garden, and what doesn’t. I have stopped trying to grow everything, and instead concentrate on the crops that are successful for me.

I think one of the greatest lessons I have learned is that every garden is unique, and what is easy to grow in one garden can be impossible in another. I am always reading that spinach and rocket are easy crops, but I never had success with them in my Yorkshire garden. Spinach either didn’t grow at all or just went to seed at the first sign of sun, while rocket always seemed to get infested.

Whereas aubergines should have been almost impossible to grow outside in my northerly garden, but surprisingly I got really good crops from dwarf plants that I grew in pots, even in cold seasons. The little egg-sized aubergines are perfect in roasted vegetable pasta dishes and curries. I love them.

I am so glad I bought Matt that first pack of chili seeds all those years ago. Little did I know what it would lead to! Home growing is now such a big part of my life, and I cannot imagine it being otherwise.

It is hard to believe we have been here in Aberdeenshire for four months now - goodness, time flies! And still only one proper day out!

I would like to apologise to the readers who enjoyed reading my posts about nature reserve visits, public gardens and countryside walks. With so much land to explore and manage, and so many ongoing projects, we just haven’t had the time or the inclination to get out exploring our new area. We definitely will - soon!

A little background information for my new readers. Matt and I lived for over 30 years in a semi-detached house on a housing estate near York in England. Both now retired and with no ties (after both losing our respective elderly parents), we realized that we wanted a more peaceful way of life with solitude, space to grow our own food, and to be surrounded by nature rather than constant human noise.

We sold our house in Yorkshire and intended to buy a detached rural property with a larger garden and countryside views in southern Scotland. But then I spotted this wonderful property for sale in five acres of land with a huge pond in north east Aberdeenshire, incredibly within our budget, and so here we are. It is far more land than we ever imagined, and there are of course challenges as well as opportunities. I still get a shock when I open the curtains each morning and realise that we actually live here. We couldn’t be happier with the way things have turned out.

This is a brief review of wildlife observations so far, our progress on various garden projects and future plans.

Wildlife Observations

We moved into the property in January, when wildlife highlights were the constant flocks of pink-footed geese flying to and from the nearby Loch of Strathbeg nature reserve, and feeding in the adjacent fields. We had regular sightings of roe deer in the garden, evidence of badgers (lots of scrapes and snuffle holes), and resident herons, cormorant, mallards and moorhens on the pond. The back garden, however, seemed disappointingly quiet.

Now it is early summer, the deciduous trees around the perimeter of the property are in full leaf and blossom, and the garden is completely transformed. Some days are wet and (very) windy, but on calm sunny days the back garden is a real suntrap, and it is hard to believe we are in the north of Scotland.

We like to have breakfast and lunch in the conservatory, and the sound of the birdsong is just incredible. Chaffinches, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, robins, wrens, song thrushes, blackbirds, skylarks, great tits, coal tits, house sparrows, tree sparrows, goldfinches, swallows and pied wagtails are all constantly present.

Then there are a couple of male pheasants, a nest of noisy carrion crows, magpies, jackdaws, woodpigeons, oystercatchers, greylag geese, herring gulls and buzzards, all adding to the soundscape. The only human sounds are occasional tractors, helicopters presumably going out to offshore rigs and farmers tending livestock in neighbouring fields.

A very exciting spot one day was a pair of ospreys circling above our pond! I don’t think the pond contains fish large enough to interest ospreys (though we do sometimes see fish jumping for insects), and they soon flew off. But it was amazing to see them!

Another exciting observation was a pair of moorhen chicks on the pond. For a few days after we spotted them one of the parents was constantly collecting food, but this suddenly stopped and unfortunately we have seen no sign of the youngsters since. I suspect the herons could be to blame.

Other sightings include a little field vole who we regularly see scampering in the back garden, toads in the grass, tadpoles in the pond, a hare on the lawn and occasional glimpses of the sparrowhawk who visits regularly. And the garden is just teeming with bees, butterflies and other insects and spiders - but surprisingly no aphids or midges (yet!).

The Orchard

One of my first priorities after moving here was to create a small orchard. After much research we ordered and duly planted nine bare root fruit trees (3 apple, 2 pear, 2 cherry, 1 plum, 1 damson). More may be added in the future.

I am pleased to report that eight of the nine trees quickly developed leaves, and some have already had blossom. The ninth (the damson) does now have a few leaves appearing low down on the main trunk, so there is still hope for that one too.

I would not expect any fruit in the first year, but so far signs are good that the trees are healthy and coping with the windy location. Though worryingly I have recently noticed brown/black spots and curled leaves on several of the trees. I am no expert, and hope that it is not a serious problem.

You can read more about how we planted the orchard here:

The Raised Beds

I love growing edible plants, and want to be as self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables as possible. Along with the orchard, establishing some raised beds was another priority. After much thought we opted for these metal beds. They were very reasonably priced, easy to construct and should be long lasting.

They took a lot of filling! As well as a bulk delivery of vegetable top soil we used branches and twigs found around the garden, raked up leaves, vegetation skimmed from the surface of the pond, leaf litter and anything else we could find.

I started stocking the beds with some herb plants brought from our previous home, seedlings raised in the greenhouse and seed sown direct a couple of months ago. I am already regularly harvesting spinach, komatsuna (mustard spinach) and lettuce. Cabbages, garlic, dwarf peas, carrots, parsnips and potatoes are also growing well.

In addition to the raised beds, we are also using sheet mulching to create more beds for growing vegetables, particularly various types of beans, brassicas, courgettes and squashes.

I like to use natural materials available to us whenever possible. For these beds we used the cardboard from our removal boxes to suppress the grass and weeds. We are covering this with layers of grass cuttings (of which we have a lot), compost that we are already harvesting from our Hotbin composter, and, most helpfully, soil from molehills found around the grounds! New ones appear most days, and we scoop them up and spread the lovely fine soil on the new beds.

Of course it will take a while for these materials to properly break down and form really good soil for growing. I expect to get crops this year, but think the beds will become more productive in future years.

Elsewhere in the Garden

Having moved into the property in January when many plants were dormant or completely died back, we had no idea what plants were growing here. Spring has been an absolute joy, with new discoveries almost daily.

Bluebells are flourishing among the trees. Unfortunately they are the Spanish variety rather than English, but they are still gorgeous.

The trees that looked so dead and dormant when we moved in are now resplendent with fresh foliage and blossom. I haven’t got round to identifying and cataloging them all yet - another future project!

In the established flower beds in the back garden new plants keep appearing almost daily. Lupins, columbines, Welsh poppies, cranesbill geraniums, alliums, globe thistles, peonies and many different hostas are just a few of the plants here, and no doubt there are many more still to be found.

Future Projects

A major project that we are working on at the moment is the heating system. The property already had solar panels, which are working remarkably well despite being around 14 years old. The roof faces south, and summer days here are long. We are going to install battery storage for the panels and an air source heat pump to replace the current oil burning heating system.

We had a similar system in our previous home, and were delighted with it. After having a heat pump for several years burning oil seems like a major step backwards, and just feels wrong.

Another priority is to get a decent broadband connection. Luckily fibre to the property was installed soon after we arrived, and we just need to arrange a service. We don’t actually have a TV aerial and are relying on a mobile broadband hub at the moment, so being able to watch programs without being constantly interrupted by spinning wheels will be a real luxury. Not that we have time for much TV!

Other projects include installing more water butts (we have already installed three, but could do with more), automatic irrigation systems and hopefully some trail cameras. Of course as soon as one project is finished there will always be another one…..

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading, and do watch out for future updates. And of course follow us as we finally get round to exploring this (to us) little known area of Scotland!

Yesterday was a good day. The wind had dropped, the sun shone and the birds were singing. When I opened my curtains I saw my first chiffchaff of the year hopping around in a flowering red currant bush. I decided to make the most of the favorable conditions and spend the day pottering around in the garden.

An early stroll revealed that a previously dormant hedgerow had burst into blossom, and that it is blackthorn! How lovely. Because we moved into our new home in January, every day is like a voyage of discovery. New plants popping up, coming into leaf and bursting into flower. When we moved in we had no idea what grows here - it is exciting to see and identify new plants as they appear!

While I was admiring the blackthorn blossom I could here a skylark singing above a nearby field, and a familiar cry alerted me to a pair of buzzards circling overhead. Predictably a pair of crows building a nest among our Scots pines soon saw them off, accompanied by raucous cawing.

I turned and took in the view over our pond. After living my entire life in housing estates I still can’t quite believe that we now live here. It seems surreal. I take time to just breathe in the feeling of space and calmness.

I don’t feel a sense of ownership - more of responsibility. And opportunity. I can’t change the world or the awful things happening in it. I can’t take world leaders and bang their heads together and force them to care about things that matter. But I can do my very best to care for this little patch of the earth and the plants and animals that live here. I can use this space to be as self-sufficient as possible, while minimizing our impact and benefiting the nature around us.

Time to get down to some work. Most of our land is to the front of our bungalow, around the pond as seen in the photo above. Although beautiful, this land is not suitable for kitchen gardening. It is too exposed to the frequent strong winds and prone to flooding.

Although not obvious, our land is situated on a slope that goes from right to left in the above photo, with the pond in a bowl. After heavy rain, water flows down the slope and the pond fills and overflows. The water then continues to flow downhill to the left. Perhaps this explains why our land was so affordable - it is not particularly suitable for development or cultivation.

There is, however, a much smaller garden round the back that is sheltered by dense hedges and fences, and is an absolute sun trap. This area was mostly grass, with flower borders and shrubs along one side. We decided to convert this into our kitchen garden, and one of the first things we did after moving in was to install four raised beds.

These took a lot of filling. We used the turf removed when we planted the trees in our new orchard, fallen branches, leaves and pine needles from around the garden, vegetation skimmed from the surface of the pond, and many bags of homemade compost which we brought with us from our previous home. We also had a bulk delivery of vegetable top soil to finally get the raised beds full and ready for planting. Here are a couple of photos from February when we had just started filling the beds.

The paths between the beds are a work in progress. First we lay down a double layer of cardboard (from the boxes we used for moving). This is then watered well, and covered in wood chip we have prepared from branches and twigs found around the garden (the recent storms helped!) Eventually we want to extend the paths all around the beds, but it takes a lot of branches to make a decent amount of wood chip with our small and aging chipper, so this is a slow process.

Yesterday I planted out spinach, chard, dwarf pea and cabbage seedlings that I have grown from seed. I added some oregano, thyme and sage plants that we brought with us, and sowed lettuce, carrot, parsnip, parsley and coriander seeds.

It was a pleasant task, accompanied by the songs of the previously mentioned chiffchaff, wrens, chaffinches, robins, blackbirds and a very vocal song thrush.

When I looked up I saw a coal tit checking out one of several nest boxes around the property - I hope it meets with approval.

Various alliums have already been planted in the raised beds, and these should help to deter some insect pests. Later in the spring, after the last frost date, I will add flowers to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects. Alyssum, marigold, Calendula and poached-egg plant seedlings are growing in the house ready to be transplanted in due course.

After completing the day’s planting in the raised beds, I shift my attention to the first of our beds created using sheet mulching. Like the paths mentioned above this was created using layers of cardboard laid over the grass. The cardboard was watered thoroughly, and then covered with a mixture of top soil and compost.

In this new bed I cut holes through the cardboard layer, and planted sprouting broccoli and Brussel sprout seedlings through the holes. Stakes were added to support the plants when they grow. The bed was then covered with a vegetable cage we brought with us from our previous home. This was our first attempt at sheet mulching, and I am happy with the result.

After a break for lunch we headed down to the very front of the garden, where a large raised bed was already present when we moved in. On the way I spot a beautiful peacock butterfly fluttering by. And a little toad in the long grass, presumably heading to the pond. I hope the heron is looking the other way!

The raised bed at the front of the garden is too large to access without walking on it, so we created a path down the middle, again using cardboard and wood chip.

It is a bit of a trek down here, especially in wet and windy weather, so in future years I intend to use this bed for perennial plants that don’t need a lot of attention.

This year, though, I planted several varieties of potatoes and sowed some tough Swiss chard, beetroot and kale seeds, which will hopefully survive the exposed conditions. And my prized Babington leek bulbils which, when established, should provide food for many years to come.

In the photo below you can see Matt in the background hoeing an area where we are sowing native wildflower seeds. Hopefully these will provide food for all manner of creatures - and be beautiful, of course.

While I was working I heard a sound that got my heart racing. I looked up and, sure enough, there was a group of nine whooper swans flying past in a perfect ‘V’ formation. What a wonderful sight! It seems unfeasible that these large, hefty birds with their long necks can actually take off and fly, and yet they go all the way to Iceland and back each year.

But then the tiny chiffchaff that greeted me this morning may have migrated from North Africa, and even butterflies cross oceans. These feats are so precarious and fraught with danger that the least we can do is to ensure there is suitable habitat for these animals when they are in our part of the world. I believe that supporting conservation societies is one of the best ways of doing this. The reserves they create and manage are so vital for both migrant and resident species.

After all our exertions it was time to pack up for the day. Walking back to the house my back and hip ached alarmingly, and my bad knee kept threatening to give way with every jolt. But it was worth it. There is something so immensely satisfying about achieving tasks in the garden, and knowing you will reap the benefits later on.

And seeing the whooper swans was, as always, just so special.

It was indeed a good day.

If you don’t want to commit to a paid subscription but would still like to support my writing and photography you could always Buy Me A Coffee. Your support is so very much appreciated and makes the effort of writing and editing the photos worthwhile!

Buy Me A Coffee

The main reason we decided to buy this property, which was well outside our preferred area of Scotland, was its huge garden. I have long dreamed of having a garden with enough space to create a productive kitchen garden and orchard, so we can be more or less self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables, as well as having plenty of space for wildlife.

When our offer on the house was accepted back in October, the first thing I did was to start planning the garden. Where I would put raised beds. Where I would plant fruit trees and bushes. Where I would plant herbs and flowers to attract beneficial insects. What I would leave wild for nature.

I studied the orientation of the grounds, and where sun and shadows would fall throughout the day. I learned that the climate here in the north east of Scotland is usually much dryer than the west with more sunshine hours, less snow in winter, but often exposed to strong winds.

I spent many, many hours researching fruit tree varieties and rootstocks suitable for our northerly location. And even more hours browsing through seed catalogues, selecting and ordering hardy varieties fit for our somewhat harsh environment.

By the time we actually moved in, I had the whole garden planned in some considerable detail. I could picture in my mind exactly how it would look and how productive it would be.

It only took a few days after we moved in before I realized my plans were completely useless.

First there were the deer. When I looked out of my window on our first morning, I saw several roe deer looking very much at home nibbling on some as yet unidentified shrubs in the garden. How lovely! I definitely want to have deer visiting the garden. But of course those deer will also love to browse the fresh new leaves of my planned fruit trees and bushes, and probably anything growing in vegetable beds. First plan change - tree guards or suitable fencing/netting will be required - more work and more expense.

Later that day while walking around the part of the garden I had planned for vegetable beds, I noticed a large area that was very squelchy. A bit of research revealed that this was near the soakaway of the rather old septic tank, which is not sited quite where I thought it was. There are no apparent problems at the moment, but it is possible the whole system will need to be replaced at some point - thus definitely not the area to build a kitchen garden!

The next day we started noticing lots of scrapes and holes in the grass. The more we looked, the more we found, and new ones have been appearing every night since we arrived. Quick research revealed that these are snuffle holes made by foraging badgers looking for worms and grubs. Fantastic - badgers in the garden!

But like the deer they can cause big problems for kitchen gardeners. Apparently they absolutely love strawberries and other fruit, sweetcorn, and to dig up carrots, potatoes and other root vegetables. They are strong animals with formidable claws, so can easily tear through netting and even fences.

Hence more plan changes. Like the deer, the last thing I want to do is keep badgers out of the garden. In fact I am so looking forward to getting trail cameras installed so we can get footage of them! It is a very big garden, so there is plenty of space for wildlife. I just don’t want them to destroy all the plants that are going to provide us with food - especially when those plants will cost a lot of money, time and effort to establish.

I have been researching ways of gardening to minimize badger damage. Ideas that I like include:

• Growing foods that badgers dislike the smell of among vulnerable crops. Onions, garlic, aromatic herbs like rosemary, oregano, thyme, mint and lavender are often suggested - and I want to grow all these anyway.

• Motion activated lights or sprinklers.

• Solar ‘Predator Eyes’, which are pairs of red lights that come on at night and, when strategically placed, make the badgers think they are being watched. They can be regularly moved to different locations so the badgers don’t just get used to them. I have already purchased a couple of these, and will be interested to see how they perform.

• Citronella spray around the growing area (badgers hate the smell).

• Putting out food in the areas I would prefer the badgers to visit (like near the trail camera!)

Other suggestions include human male urine (haven’t mentioned this one to Matt yet - not sure I like the idea, lol) and electric fences around the growing area. The latter is probably the most effective method. Badgers have very sensitive noses, and after experiencing an electric fence once they are unlikely to return to the same area. But it seems a bit extreme to me (I would feel cruel), as well as expensive, and I will keep that as a very last resort. For the moment I will grow strawberries in containers in the secure greenhouse instead of in the planned beds, and try a combination of the methods above. If anyone has any other ideas I would love to hear them!

And then it started to rain - and didn’t stop for over three weeks. Our large pond broke its banks, and expanded alarmingly until it covered almost the entire garden, including areas where I had intended to plant fruit trees and vegetable beds. This was, apparently, a rare event. But as we all know the climate is changing rapidly, and it may be less rare in the future.

So, despite having several acres of land, there is nowhere that is ideal for growing fruit trees. Fruit trees don’t like to be waterlogged, and they like shelter from wind and plenty of sun. The land that is on higher ground, and thus unlikely to flood, is either predominantly in shade or exposed to the full force of the frequently strong wind. Shucks!

But I am not one to be put off easily. Where there are problems, there are usually solutions. And opportunities. I will have to settle for a much more modest kitchen garden than originally hoped for in the small enclosed rear garden, which is hopefully deer-proof. It does have several fresh snuffle holes, but it should be easier to control badgers in this enclosed space. It is also unfortunately surrounded by trees and largely in shade.

But chard, kale, lettuces, spinach, beans, peas, carrots, onions, etc. will all grow in partial shade - just not as quickly or productively as in sun. Tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and chillies will have to be limited to what I can fit in the greenhouse (which of course is now almost stuffed with strawberry plants!). Perhaps another year we will think about a second greenhouse, or even a polytunnel, if funds permit.

As for my dreams of an orchard, I will plant some hardy varieties of fruit trees on higher land which should be safe from flooding, and hope they will survive the sometimes brutal winds. Disappointing, but still a massive improvement on what I had before.

The rain did finally stop about a week ago, and we have even had a little sunshine. When the sun does come out it is really lovely here - far-reaching views, birds singing, moorhens on the lawn, and hardly another house in sight.

The flood water disappeared remarkable quickly, like it was never there. At least it was clean water and didn’t leave a muddy mess. So after a slow start I am now frantically sowing seeds, planting fruit bushes and digging turf to prepare for the fruit trees which have been ordered and are heading this way.

One thing this did make me realize is how impossible it is to plan a garden unless you know how its ecology changes through the seasons. One short viewing (in the midst of Storm Amy) and hours spent poring over photos taken in late summer did not prepare me for the reality.

It also made me wonder how many important land planning decisions are made by people who do not really know what they are dealing with. I suspect there are a lot!

Because of the adverse weather, and the time and effort needed to get the garden established, we haven’t been out exploring yet. Hopefully this will change before too long, and I will be able to get out with the camera. Look out for future posts, and also for observations and updates from the garden - I am really excited to see what as yet unknown plants emerge here as spring progresses. And of course watching the wildlife that visits will be such a joy!

Until next time, take care everyone, and enjoy the early signs of spring!