We’ve ordered an apple espalier, a pear espalier and a mulberry tree. The apple and pear are slated to go in along the south-west facing wall, but now I’m fretting about this. Will it get enough sunshine? Once the arbour is in place then we’ll have an open south-east facing location for espaliers too, but sadly it’s not yet built. Hopefully the shelter will see them through.
The mulberry will go in the bed next to the deck. A bit more sunshine gets through to there as it’s close to the garage which is much lower than the house. This location has the added advantage of blocking our view of Mr Nasty Neighbour, when the tree eventually grows large.
Anyhow, excited.
Eating our produce
Last night we had a Thai salad, made with our own lemongrass and chillis. Homegrown chillis are the business – they grow well, mean you have chillis to hand and a little goes a long way. The lemongrass was nice, but not remarkably better fresh than bought. (Being woody, I guess it keeps pretty well.)
We got to talking, as the lemongrass is an attractive grass, looking a lot like the grasses that were in trendy gardens a few years back. The upshot is we now have our eyes on the front garden as an extension of the potager… A circlular bed, edged with lemongrass would look pretty nifty. And have the added advantage of keeping us in lemongrass. The complication seems to be it won’t tolerate a British winter, so maybe just one for the greenhouse (we don’t have one).
But some to add to the wishlist:
- Variety of chillis
- Thai basil – apparently possible
- Lemongrass
One man and his garden 