It is always a pleasure for me to go and see what Tom and the team are doing at Gravetye Manor. It is a great place to go and get ideas to bring back to the garden here. One of the things I love so much is the scale that it is gardened on. Thank you Tom and your great team.
Today was a special day. We have taken on a boy I have known for the past 22 years to help in the vegetable garden. I got some donations while in the States to pay for some summer help. Thank you to all who gave, I think you will all think the money is well spent. Part of today’s work was to clean the kitchen yard.
It is good for me to do weekend duty. It means that I am down in the nursery and so can also get on with seed sowing and so I am keeping the succession of seedlings going. This weekend it was the turn of vegetables like Kale and of course different lettuce.
While on all fours planting Celerica ‘Prinz’ and Leek ‘Bandit’ today with the sun on my back I was thinking about eating these and how it would be cold and wet. As a gardener it is hard to be in the moment and not thinking about the season you are planting for.
The biggest mistake people make is to water little and often. It’s much better to give the plot a really soaking once a week than a sprinkle every day.
I am very happy with myself. I have my first strawberry ready. I grew three plants in a pot in the kitchen yard and this is the result. It looks so perfect that I do not want to eat it but know I must.
It is great to be picking artichokes again. It is one of the vegetables that really reminds me of Christopher and fun lunches here at Great Dixter. Summer must really be here.
This week is the start of the clean up of the garden. Weeding through and sorting out. We are doing this now that a lot of the plants are in the ground. Today I lifted the carrot cover and found that the plants are doing very well and will do better with the weeding the area got.
We have now had a few days of much-needed rain and the artichoke slips are looking very good. We split them at the perfect time. Because we have had rain I have also moved some self-sown poppies into the area, they are also looking good.
I still feel excitement when I walk into the glasshouse in the morning and see what has come up while I was asleep. There is something special about seeing that first growth.
Great Dixter Vegetable Garden 