Our Garden for 2013

Every year we go through the same  routine with our garden.  I ask hubby to get rid of the spare timber, paint pots and metal, he doesn't get time.  I get rid of what I can manage and work round the rest.  Through the year various junk gets dumped in the garden again and it starts to look even messier.

Well happily, this year, hubby finally got round to clearing the garden.  This pictures below show just a part of the stuff, we managed to fill a people carrier to take to the dump.

He kindly dug up the beds for me and turned over the soil making it soft and easy for me to work with.

After months of neglect, what followed was a a few days of work.  The day hubby cleared the garden, I was thinking how nice it would be to have a lawn instead of tiles.  I didn't mention it but the next day he turned up with a big role of fake grass.  Looks funny in the middle like that, but its kind of nice next to the bench and the kids like it.

The first thing I did to motivate myself was to plant flowers.  These are visible from our living room door, so are a nice sight first thing in the morning or for guests.

I cleared the strawberry plants this year to make room for other plants, but we couldn't have the garden without any strawberries at all, so have stuck to this little hanging planter which is filling up with red strawberries already.

The bean plant that Gorgeous brought home from school.  He gets so happy when he sees his plant growing.

I left one small bed just for spinach.  We'll be using these for pakora's in Ramadan insh'Allah.

Tomatoes and aubergine plants.

I've also planted lots of potatoes, onions and at the children's request peas.  Mash'Allah, these are coming up nicely now.

These are the first fruits on Little Man's little apple tree.  He checks it every day and gets so cross with the ants that climb over it.  He's convinced their after his fruit!

I pulled all of the mint out of the pots and restricted it to two pots as it spreads so fast and can take over the beds.  Insh'Allah hope to use this for mint sauce to go with the pakora's.

In the tall planters which hubby bought home last year I have planted blackcurrant, red currant and tayberry plants. The first two are doing well, the tayberry has yet to show any greenery, but they taste so good (they look like long raspberries), so I am hoping it will come to life. Restricting them to the planters also means they wont spread all over the place in my little garden.

Alhamdullilah, it's so pleasant to have a bit of space to enjoy outside.  I've now handed it over to the kids who play in it every day outside with the neighbours children, water my plants, keep it tidy, have picnics and have their clubs out there.  Yesterday they raided the kitchen and threw their grandmother a party outside much to her amusement.  Insh'Allah, next step is to get the barbecue stand out.