Gardening without worms

I love gardens. I love flowers. I love fresh veg straight from the garden............... but, I hate digging and stuff and I hate hate hate worms. Even typing the word makes me shudder. So apart from a few rare moments, gardening for me has been limited to cutting odd things back, pulling out a few weeds (and, I have to confess, then leaving them on the grass for some kind person to pick up later).

But we have a greenhouse, why haven't I made use of that. Worm free gardening. I've dabbled a bit with the hanging baskets but now, just maybe, that's all changed. A few weeks ago I sowed some seeds in trays in the greenhouse and now have runner beans, peas, lettuce and tomatoes beginning to grow. Ok, so when they're ready to go outside, Mick will have to do that bit, but at least I've started them off. I've also now got some flower seeds growing, in the hope that I can provide my own plants for the hanging baskets this year. Pictures and updates to follow.

22nd April - even the flower seeds are peeping through now and the runner beans, in particular, look really strong. Not a worm in sight.

29th April - some of the seeds are doing very well - this means the runner beans will need to be planted out into Mick's raised beds that he's redone for the veg. That could mean worms so this may be where Mick takes over. At least until the beans are ready to pick - I can do that without fear of worms leaping out of the soil at me.

Well, I've not updated this through the summer for lots of reasons but I'm thrilled that we've had lots of lovely veg etc this year and I did manage to get some flowers from seeds to put in the 6 hanging baskets I did. Unfortunately, I didn't get pics of them all - next year.

We're still enjoying the tomatoes and cucumbers (thanks to Caroline for the latter, they've been great) and have some lettuce still growing. Our peas did nothing this year, despite trying a second sowing of the seeds but the green beans were quite good and we had some delicious potatoes - more of those next year I think. We certainly need more carrots too but I think we'll try some different ones. Onions - enough to last the winter probably.

My lovely little apple tree - the first I've ever had of my own - produced loads of apples which were so tasty. But BAD news - the wasps seemed to get at so many of them. So next year, some protection for my apples is a must. Something also got ALL our gooseberries - bushes covered in berries one day, gone totally the next. Not even a trace. We've no idea who ate those but I hope they provided a good meal! We were really looking forward to the gooseberry pies too.

It's now October and we're still eating the cucumbers and tomatoes. We still have a few lettuce growing as well. Our parsnips and swedes are doing well so we're looking forward to eating some of those, maybe at Christmas. If we're going to be here throughout next year, which is likely, I think we should grow much more next year and really benefit from lots of fresh, cheaper produce.

November - finishing off the last of the cucumbers but tomatoes all gone. Mick found some potatoes today when he was digging that patch so they were a welcome and very unexpected addition to our meal this evening. I think we need to start planning for next year (I'll do all the hard work of thinking and planning and Mick can do the easy bit - the digging).