Patience

Veg Plot

It is interesting to note, that sometimes if you leave a problem to sit for a while, the answer often appears of it's own accord.  I experienced this recently in my efforts to Garden for Free.  You may remember that I dug over a piece of ground in order to create a vegetable patch at the end of summer.

Having dug over the ground and taken all the scraggy plants and weeds out, I found I had a lack of soil and a big dip in the earth which would need filling in before I could plant anything up, (you can see the way the soil slopes away on the left hand side of the fence in this photo.)  Leaving the patch, I went away thinking that I would have to buy some compost to fill in the hole.  I even did a bit of googling to see if I could buy cheap compost anywhere, but I couldn't find anything, so left it at that.

Leaves Added

Several weeks later and the leaves are falling from the trees in huge drifts into my back garden.  While hoovering them up from the grass with the lawnmower, JW suggested that we dump the chopped up leaves and grass clippings onto the veg plot to fill in the hole.  He is a genius sometimes!

We will need to clear the leaves from the lawn several times before they are all down from the trees, so there should be plenty to fill in that dip before spring.  Leaf mulch is extremely nutritious and I should just have enough compost in my own compost bin to mix it up in spring to get a good soil mix for my veg seedlings.

You may also remember the little self-seeded holly tree that I potted up earlier in the year.  The gorgeous, big holly tree that it came from is currently shedding its lovely red berries, so I thought I would try an experiment to see if I could get lots of little holly trees for free.  I collected up about 15 of the berries and popped them into another bare batch of earth that I have to (hopefully) create a holly tree nursery.  I also collected up a couple more self seeded holly trees which had sprung up in places where they were unlikely to grow very big and popped them in the nursery too.  So we shall wait and see what happens in the spring.

Holly Tree Nursery Bed

The little holly I potted up earlier is doing really well, so fingers crossed I will have a holly hedge growing at the front of the house next year.  The birds will love it!

My final Garden for Free moment was to pot up a Horse Chestnut Nut, that I picked up from a friend's garden this time last year.  I am not sure it will germinate, but we shall see.

The only job that I must get done before the snow comes is to take cuttings of my lavenders, to insure them against frost damage over the winter.

A Happy Little Holly Tree