Garden Goals

I like setting myself goals to achieve in the garden. My first goal was to have something in flower in my garden all year long. That proved to be a very easy goal to reach as I garden in zone 8 and winters are mostly pretty mild. Even the odd very cold winter doesn't put a spanner in the wheel flowering wise. We are going through a cold spell at the mo but my Winter Yasmin, Hellebores, Viburnum bodnantense Dawn, Winter Aconites, Crocus, Snowdrops, Iris and Hamamelis are still flowering happily.

Hamamelis in flower since last December

So, to raise the bar a bit, I set myself another goal; to have bunches of flowers from my garden in the house during each and every month of the year. I love picking flowers from my own garden as they are often scented, pretty, varied & free from any pesticides or other cides you can think of.

I'm happy to say that I've achieved that second goal too. Granted, the bunches of flowers from the garden can sometimes be rather small,

A small posy of Rosa Moonlight picked in early January 2012

frightfully tiny even,

but they count nevertheless.

And last autumn I set myself a third goal: growing vegetables in my potager for 12 months of the year. I haven't reached that goal yet because I only started last September (with sowing lots of vegs for the winter months) but I'm getting there.  Harvesting vegs in winter can be a bit of a challenge but so far I'm doing great: Brussels sprouts, cavolo nero, red cabbage, Jerusalem fartichokes, leeks, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, wild rocket and much, much more. So much in fact that I manage to score at least 1 meal and fresh greens galore for my chooks from the potager on a daily basis. Salads I love so I have them almost daily and fortunately in my potager I'm still spoilt for choice as you can see here:

Salad of giant red mustard, wild rocket, mibuna, lettuce, land cress, red chicory and endive.

It was utterly yummy, not to mention healthy.

Dear Veg Plotting has set herself a garden goal too: to have a salad from the garden at least once a  week for a whole year and as I thought it a splendid idea I've joined in the fun of what is now called 52 Week Salad Challenge.


copyright 2012 Y.E.W. Heuzen