Sunday Garden

My garden is coming together, today seen me planting into my new raised beds.  I feel such a sense of achievement It's been a slow process, I have a condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis so over the past year in building my garden i have at times had to rely on the kindness of others and take a break here or there.  Finally though I'm on a new medication and I'm starting to get back to my old self.  I bought a large quantity of old builders scaffolding and i used it to make three large raised beds.  I already had two small beds that a bricky built for me when repairing our garden wall.  In one of these I planted sage, lemon balm, chives and I've added some onions today.  A bit of a hodge podge but they are all healthy, in the second I have planted carrots, two years ago these did very well in the first bed.  Today I added some lettuce at the bottom end as it was the only place I had space for them so fingers crossed they will do well.  Its a fine sandy soil due to builders sand he added at the time of building.  In my three larger raised beds the going is a bit slower but today I planted the first up, I managed to get a trailer load of manure into this bed last year but unfortunately not the others.  I'm very lucky and used to work at a wonderful organic garden in Helens Bay and John gave me a box filled with various goodies this morning including some cabbage, kale, pumpkins, sprouts and courgettes.  So I've put these all into this first bed and then after they are all over I shall put a green crop in and leave it fallow next year and work the next two beds which I will be adding more top soil to in a month or two time.  My plan for these is to plant them up with a green crop and dig it in for the start of next spring.  We are lucky to have a large enough garden considering we live in the suburbs.  We now own a coop with four hens, Dutchie a Maran, Lucy a Sussex bantam, Tau and Maple Syrup two browns.  They produce three to four eggs a day. We have only had them for the past month but I'm loving it, they seem to have made the garden feel a little more complete.  This spring I also planted two apple trees and two currant bushes.  I had kept wild strawberries in the small raised bed but i moved these around and planted them near one of the apple trees and other corners of the garden where they are doing well.  My friend Hushang gave me some beautiful strawberries of a larger variety and I have put them in a border bed where they a growing nicely.  I'm putting some ornamentals here or there for colour and fun, the bees seem to love the chive flowers though so I try not to cut them too much for my vases. My phone is getting fixed so I have no photos yet but I shall as soon as I can.  What a wonderful solstice!