In approximately 1 acre of woodland we have approximately 1/3 of an acre of brambles. And counting. Blink and they've grabbed another 1/3 of an acre or so. So we're on the offensive. But it's slow, boring work. The fire was quite fun but otherwise spending most of the day detangling, chopping, forking out roots who are quite happy where they are and generally getting scratched is not the fun kind of gardening. Emily has the wisdom of youth and opted for a woodland snooze. Smart girl.
It is indeed official. We have an asparagus bed. A long thin strip near the rhubarb and blueberries. Featuring Pacific Purple, Connover's Colossal and Gijnlim. The crowns are weird looking things. Quite alien. We won't be eating the benefits for a year or two but it will be worth the wait.
We're back in action. Or limbering up for it anyway. A few more beds have been prepped for summer growing. The fruit bushes appear to have survived a process somewhere on the spectrum between bloody massacre and pruning. A selection of seed potatoes are quietly chitting amongst themselves. And most importantly our luxurious (a fiver from Morrisons) new coldframe and the capacitous window ledges of Hollow Barn are now jampacked with seed trays. Carefully filled with potting compost and seeds. I've had a post planting panic that many of the seeds may not have survived a winter in a drawer outside in the potting shed. But assuming they have then we'll soon be seeing the first shoots of 2 types of runner bean, 2 types of peas, 2 types of globe artichoke, chicory, 5 types of lettuce, 2 types of squash, sweetcorn, 4 types of tomato, 2 types of kale, cucumbers, marigolds, fennel, rhubarb chard, dwarf beans and 3 types of courgette. Whichever ones show off their green shoots first will be awarded some sort of small prize.
From the loud white notes played by the cow parsley earlier this year purple has become the accent colour round the garden. From beetroots to potato flowers, it's pretty hard to piss off god by not noticing.
it. 
The reclaimed cottage garden is now a rich landscape of courgettes, sweetcorn, potatoes, bolting rocket, odd shaped lettuces, giant beetroots, rambling peas, tangled beans, florence fennel, celeriac, a flowering leek, lots of marigolds, sunflowers and comfrey, broccoli, onions and a few globe artichokes. Oh and some rocks. And the reclamation continues. The previously head height jungle of raspberries, roses, nettles and bramble run wild is now a near fully dug extension to the cottage garden awaiting some paths, some asparagus, rhubarb, more artichokes and a few other more permanent fixtures. Not to mention a blueberry hill.
Just around the corner from Molly Sugden's Hairdressing in E2 in London are these little oases of garden splendour. The former is a spectacular 'wall garden'. The latter a tiny corner plot which transforms a very ordinary and very urban road into a place to stop and marvel. A heavily pruned tree makes a perfect framework for a vertical garden of lovingly created hanging baskets surrounded by lush tropical greenery. It genuinely surprises and delights. Where space is limited, go up.
We've not counted, its not a competition and in terms of sheer numbers there are no doubt more blades of grass. Or nettles. But in terms of sheer presence cow parsley is a fairly dominant character round our way right now. And it has character. It adds dashes of white to the swathes of green. Stands tall in the dry and slouches in the rain, drooping sulkily in the pathways with an "if I'm fed up you're gonna need to be fed up too" attitude.
Slowly but surely we are reclaiming the cottage garden as a place for growing stuff we want to eat rather than a place where anything grows.
Out of the sixteen beds in the garden, about 8 now have stuff growing in them, 3 are ready to plant and 5 still need weeding / digging. And most of the 5 are little ones! We have unearthed a crop of giant boulders from one of the beds but otherwise generally delighted in the loveliness of the soil and the local fellowship of insects, spiders and general naturalness that give this little corner a sense of fertility and (hopefully) abundance. And we've also delighted to find that there a whole load of strawberries, rocket, chard and even a few potatoes doing there thing already.
Joining them we now have an array of runner beans, french beans, peas, courgettes, purple sprouting broccoli, potatoes, rainbow chard, beetroot and squash limbering up to face all the slugs, birds, mice, wind and rain a Yorkshire summer is likely to throw at them. With leeks, carrots, more peas, kale, sprouts, onions, more potatoes and probably a few others still to plant. Ooh and we have a load of tomatoes in the dilapidated greenhouse.
