A cottage garden update

Head injuries, dramatic rats, annoyed neighbours, and so much more.

When we bought this cottage almost a year ago, one of the most exciting things was the prospect of being proper gardeners. The house we owned before had a square patch of astroturf, and although we had a potting shed and a few pots, we were really looking forward to tackling a proper garden. Sadly, though once obviously the owner’s pride and joy, the cottage garden was incredibly overgrown and neglected. When we moved in, the plot, which is around 100ft long and 50ft wide, had been ‘tidied’ (kinda hacked about) by someone presumably employed by the vendor:

View from the dubiously constructed 80s loft conversion

…but while we were refurbishing the house last summer, it was basically an extension to our building site.

Yes, that’s dog bed drying on the Ooni pizza oven next door to an old cooker. And that’s the rose arch that gave me the head injury

We watched in delight, but also horror, as summer came and everything kind of exploded: there were really old roses, massive pompom things with huge leaves (globe thistles?), poppies, amazing anemones, phlox and peonies, apple arches, espaliered fruit trees, shit loads of borage, SO MUCH LOVAGE, beautiful cornflowers, that horrible sticky weed thing that attaches itself to you, and as summer turned into autumn, loads of apples, no pears, and a creeping realisation that we’d bitten off more than we could chew (excuse the iPhone footage, but you get the general idea):

We did a few bits ourselves: took down horrible arches with gnarly old climbers to free up a patio area, which has turned out to be an ankle twisting death trap of dodgy crazy paving (also sustained a nasty head injury here); trimmed the ridiculously overgrown hedges (that gave us another 6’ of garden); uncovered a lovely old mill stone; destroyed a couple of manky old sheds (another head injury); cleared some of the worst brambles and rogue raspberry runners; dug up some wobbly dead trees (one half came down when Jamie’s friend Simon merely pulled a branch), and then employed some muscle to clear the rubbish and take the broken greenhouse down

The hedge of doom, plus the dog looking for rats (we fenced it off after this discovery)

This year, with the house almost finished, we thought we could properly turn our attention to the garden. We kind of envisage the garden in thirds: a patio area with a little garden for herbs, with a trellis to give us some privacy from the neighbour’s kitchen window, then the middle bit of lawn, which we’ve widened on both sides and seeded, the left hand one right back to the hedge) and a patch of wild flowers by the holly tree, then the last third - the absolute worst, most overgrown bit, just past the pergola thing with the enormous grapevine - as a kitchen garden complete with greenhouse and raised beds. Quotes came in thick and fast: terrifying quotes. After going massively and predictably over budget on a 400 year old cottage with woodworm and knackered lathe and plaster, the last thing we wanted was to pay another five grand for a garden. So, we decided to do it ourselves. Here’s our really in-depth garden plan.

That’s a wildflower area just past the patio on the left (just call me David Hockney). See what I mean about the patio? Death trap.

Every weekend has been spent getting absolutely filthy: clearing paths; getting rid of rats that had invaded everything (and fencing it off to make sure the dog didn’t eat the poison) - one decided to die dramatically on the doorstep as a kind of last hurrah; digging over endless mounds of building rubbish; multiple trips to the dump (we’ve totally destroyed Jamie’s car); weeding (we’re overwhelmed with three cornered leek - god it’s an absolute bastard); levelling; raking, and annoying our neighbours with bonfires. Jamie has turned out to be bloody amazing at everything he sets his hand to. First it was lime pointing, carpentry and renovating disgusting old beams, now it’s creating raised beds from bits of old floorboard.

‘Put that fire out!’ was yelled at us by an unknown neighbour. A lot.

Et voila! The view back towards the house (note dreadful loft conversion)

The strawberries at the back were a gamble - a garden centre hanging basket that we split. The two front ones seem to be doing better.

One of the biggest problems with the existing flower beds has been trying to work out what is a weed and what isn’t. The plant recognition app will tell you that something isn’t a weed (see aforementioned bastard leek), then Google will tell you to burn it with fire and hope it never returns.

Do you know what, though? We’re actually getting there. We’ve now levelled the kitchen garden, Jamie’s made the raised beds, we’ve filled them with AMAZING compost from two really old compost bins we found hidden under the enormous falling over hedge at the back, we’ve ordered a greenhouse, lugging endless sacks of sand and cement from the car for the concrete base, we’ve knocked up mortar and repaired the pretty brick border around the millstone as best we can, and we’ve admitted defeat and decided we can’t do a new patio. We’ll have to pay someone for that bit.

Elderly whippet modelling mill stone/brick patio feature

An expert would be horrified, but I’m quite proud of our pointing - we’re going to fill the inner bit with concrete and then shingle

The house is full of seedlings - too many actually. I’ve learned my lesson there - what on earth made me sow a whole tray of celery? We now rush out eagerly every morning to see what’s changed. Next up: a greenhouse! A proper cobbled patio! Sweetpeas climbing the grape vine thingy! Tomatoes! Self sufficiency! Okay maybe not that, but what a lovely thing gardening is. Who knew? xx