The End of an old Gardening Year and The Start of a New Gardening Year

It is the final few hours of 2006 and this gardening year has been a strange one for me. The summer was hot and long. Some may say that this is a good thing but if you are a gardener then this can be a testing time. The grass was brown and the vegetable slow to develope. Luckly August and Early September gave us some much needy rain. The rain helped to green up the grass and the vegetables had a late growth spert. This was so for the runner beans, we had loads all of a sudden. It was not as if I was not watering them or they where growing in poor soil but for some reason they all of a sudden decided to burst into life and we had a very good crop if a little late of runner beans. The beans where stringless and very juicey and tender a real delight to have with our sunday lunch.

With the weather predictions for the UK to be much of the same in summer 2007 I am intending to include a lot of organic matter into the soil in the form of well rotted horse and cow manure. Mulch all of the plants in March/April and retain a lot of natural rain water for when times are needing. Lets hope 2007 is a great year. I would like to wish every one who is reading this blog a Happy and Healthy 2007.

The_Snail