Year by year, bed by bed.
This garden started in 2019, but there were gardens before it. Read the back-story →
The blank rectangle
We bought the house in December. A flat rectangle of lawn over bare clay, a bit of topsoil raked over it and some grass seed, brand new fences, and nothing else. No beds, no trees, and no plan yet - just a lot of mowing while we worked out what to do with it.
The shed, and the first chicks
We added a shed to the backyard, built from scratch out on the open grass. There were no beds near it yet - that corner was still just lawn. Our first chicks arrived the same year, raised for my daughter's school Calf Club.
A busy year
I stained the shed, we got someone in to build the deck and lay the pavers by the gate and along the side path, and I built a workbench for the shed. Not much growing that year, but plenty getting built.
Fences, borders and chickens
I stained the fence, put in a new border garden along the bottom of it, and built a garden box. We got someone in to build a retaining wall down the back. Right at the end of the year, another lot of chickens arrived. Read the full story →
Pumpkins behind the shed, and a new lawn
I built off the back of the retaining wall, and put a raised garden in behind the shed. That is where the pumpkins went. A load of compost turned up to fill it. Then in December I dug the whole back lawn out by hand, brought new topsoil in and sowed it again. Read the full story →
Trellis, boxes, and the first grapefruit
More garden boxes along the back of the house, and trellis fencing that I built in panels and put up along the fence line. A little step went in as well. The grapefruit gave us its first fruit, which felt like fair payment for the number of times I have moved that tree.
The walkway, and the best year for produce
A timber walkway down the side of the shed, and new raised beds built and filled. Five years on from the shed, the last of that corner stopped being lawn. It was also the best year the garden has had: crown pumpkins, sweetcorn, watermelon, tomatoes right through to December, and more sunflowers and zinnias than I had room for.
