A gardening tale..

My big passion, other than knitting and sewing is my garden.  I have to admit that I am a bit of a fair weather gardener..you don't often see me out there when it's raining or freezing cold..but when the temperature rises above 10 degrees I spend as much time as I can outside.  This means that during the summer, knitting gets squeezed into a couple of hours in the evening.. so the jumper I'm knitting for a friend  is taking a bit longer than anticipated.. and the gorgeous lace shrug that I am knitting for myself in Rowan Kid Haze will probably be ready for next summer if I'm lucky!

We moved into our current house 5 years ago and I have to admit that the garden was a big factor in my decision to buy it - husband didn't have any say!  We live on top of a ridge in Buckinghamshire and are really lucky to have a flat garden as a lot of the houses are situated on the steep hills that lead in and out of the village.

Two years ago, I decided to make a really large herbaceous border at the side of the house and spent loads of time and a bit of money planting it up with all my favourite cottage garden plants, many of which I had grown from seed or swapped with friends.

Then a year later I found out I was pregnant and all of a sudden the house is not big enough and we need to build an extension..arghh..and after much faffing about..delays and saving up, the builders have moved in and guess where the extension is going - yes, right over the border I created.

Now the border looks like this..I don't go round this part of the house much anymore - it's too traumatic!

Builder's rubbish including a lovely portaloo!!

I have saved as many plants as I can and that I have space for and most of them are now taking up residence in the vegetable garden which means we can't grow any veg this summer, except what we can stuff into pots.  The good thing about all this though is that a lot of the garden is going to need to be redesigned after the extension is finished  - yipee!!  Lots more new plants and the summerhouse which is in the picture below is going to be my garden studio.  It may only be small but it will be all mine and a place to escape to away from the boys - I am the only female in this house with 3 sons and even the dog is male!!

Anyway the sun is out, the boys are back from the supermarket and there is gardening to do in the little patch not taken over by breeze blocks, cement mixers and scaffolding boards.  I might nick those and build some more raised beds.