RE: Gardening - 4

Good one, we are having a go at beans growing up a net on the side of our greenhouse. SB

SB

No they are not, they are weeds. I can see them from here.

Phil

You'll be the guy with the straw hat, Bermuda shorts, Binoculars and Fur Coat then ?,

I didn't know you could see me peeking from behind the curtains.

Phil

SB,
My dad grows runner beans most years, no net just bamboo canes stuck in the ground and tied to the top of a 6ft fence.
We get loads of beans off them, just when you think you've picked all the ones that are ready you find a whole load more hiding away.
I would be concerned that you might have trouble picking them if you have a net, the tendrils and the beans grow all over the shop, it could become a right suffocating tangle.
VM

I understand that VM and thanks. One reason for this is for the display of Flowers for one thing, we have seen it done outside a restaurant in St. Pauls Square it looked quite good. SB

Went to our caravan last weekend for the first time this season.

Look what has happened to my tropicals.One winter too many.

?

Denise

Thats not dead, it's just having a rest. It looks like something I've grown. Do you know I once had a house plant that withered and I thought died. I threw it on a rubbish dump at the top of the garden. It took root and grew to be 8 foot high and flowered with the most magnificent flower you ever saw. I have a photo somewhere I must look it out.

Phil.

Denise,

I am repeating this story here for you, I have tweaked it a little since first relating it on the BHF.

Granddads Garden.

This is a little story about a man who I admired greatly and who had such a profound effect on my life. I am not ashamed to say that I miss him greatly.

During WWII two houses at the rear of my granddads house were flattened in an air raid. The only access to these houses was by way of a narrow entry between granddads house and the house next door. So these properties, after being made safe were left untouched and more or less as they were.

As the houses were owned by the same landlord as my granddads house, he approached the landlord with a deal. The deal was he would clear the site if he were allowed to rent it as additional garden. Because of the layout clearing the site and building new properties would have been nigh on impossible .The landlord was no fool he jumped at the offer.

Granddads first job was to strip out everything that was salvageable, timber, window frames, and bricks. All the timber that could not be reused was cut up for fuel for the fire in the house. He then stripped back all the topsoil from the site and he piled it up for reuse later. After putting all the rubbish on the site he could into the cellars he formed the rest into a bank at the top end of the boundary to his new garden.

His next job was to lay out his new garden into flower beds, vegetable beds and paths etc. His favourite flowers Lupin’s, Chrysanthemums and Roses took pride of place. This was after he redistributed all the topsoil back around the site, and planted a privet hedge to hide the rubbish bank. He then laid a new lawn on top of where the cellars had been.

Granddads next door neighbour was a busy self employed painter and decorator who never had time for gardening. He had handed his garden into the care of my granddad years previously. In this garden granddad built two large greenhouses and a large potting shed and tool store from salvaged bricks, timber and window frames.

The outcome was he ended up with one of the biggest gardens in the area, and for the rest of the war the family and neighbours had all the fresh vegetables they needed

He did all this on his own, whilst carrying on with a full time job, and it was all done by a man that was declared unfit to serve his country as a member of the armed forces as he was born with his feet malformed and they had to be broken and turned the correct way round shortly after birth.

This was all before I was born, but the memories of that garden I will carry forever. The nights 3 or 4 of us kids would camp out on the lawn at the top end of the garden it was far enough away from the house for us to imagine we were alone in the countryside and it was near of us to creep back into bed if we got cold or scared in the middle of the night. Then there were the bonfire parties on November 5th. It seemed that half the street came to those. The best thing of all though was all the fresh fruit and berries that we helped ourselves to throughout the summer months. Strawberry’s Raspberry’s Gooseberry’s etc they were all delicious.

From the end of the war until my grandparents moved, there was not a day that went past that my grandfather didn’t spend time in that garden. When the council decided to demolish the property it broke his heart, on the day that they moved my grandparents out I did not have the heart to be there. They moved them to a block of pensioner’s flats near the Maypole. Granddads garden was a square piece of scrub land about 15ft x 15ft, for weeks he never even touched it. He was finally talked into going out and making a start on it, once he started he was approached by all the other residents of the block asking if he wished to look after their plots as well as his own, because they were not capable of tending their own plots. So once again he ended up with a reasonable sized garden and was a happy man for the years remaining to him.

Phil

What a lovely story Phil.Thanks for posting.

That's a great story Phil, Determination is an incredible force.

well done to your grandad Phil.

What a guy.
I think that sort of effort would finish most people off.
But to do all that clearance and then go on to build things and grow so much stuff, which in itself is a major achievment, is quite staggering.
Even without a full time job I don't think I would have the energy to finish that sort of task.
VM

Volty's right, he wouldn't.