This weekend has mostly been...
...purple.
Courtesy of the blackcurrant bush and bramble hedge in the back garden.
About five years ago a colleague gave me a twig from a blackcurrant bush, that I took home and stuck in the ground, as per her instructions. Yesterday I picked 3lb of currants off it. The brambles just appeared, as brambles do on any boundary that isn't supervised to within an inch of its life.
I have a simple style of gardening called "mostly I don't have time, and plants are supposed to grow anyway". I occasionally plant things, then leave them to struggle and either win, or get smothered. When we walk by the flowerbeds (i.e. the bits that aren't paved and that Gav doesn't mow), I proudly point out the surviving shrubs and flowers. For some reason other, more pessimistic, people mostly see the weeds.
Most of the blackcurrants have now been stewed and are cooling before being frozen. I've used a few already for a blackberry and blackcurrant crumble - pure nostalgia. My parents have a big garden and when I was a child it was full of fruit bushes and trees. It's rather nice that after 14 years living in Manchester I've finally got to taste the fruits from my own back garden.
Courtesy of the blackcurrant bush and bramble hedge in the back garden.
About five years ago a colleague gave me a twig from a blackcurrant bush, that I took home and stuck in the ground, as per her instructions. Yesterday I picked 3lb of currants off it. The brambles just appeared, as brambles do on any boundary that isn't supervised to within an inch of its life.
I have a simple style of gardening called "mostly I don't have time, and plants are supposed to grow anyway". I occasionally plant things, then leave them to struggle and either win, or get smothered. When we walk by the flowerbeds (i.e. the bits that aren't paved and that Gav doesn't mow), I proudly point out the surviving shrubs and flowers. For some reason other, more pessimistic, people mostly see the weeds.
Most of the blackcurrants have now been stewed and are cooling before being frozen. I've used a few already for a blackberry and blackcurrant crumble - pure nostalgia. My parents have a big garden and when I was a child it was full of fruit bushes and trees. It's rather nice that after 14 years living in Manchester I've finally got to taste the fruits from my own back garden.