The question from the old nursery rhyme came to mind as I sat down to write this morning. Since moving to Cumbria I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that gardening up here among the hills in the Eden Valley is not the same as in the low-lands of the Trent Valley. Nor is working chiefly with containers and surrounded by high walls the same as gardening in an open space with wide lawns.

Some of my experiments with veg in pots have worked fairly well. The runner beans have been fine, onions are doing well, and we’ve had a few courgettes from the two plants that I tried growing vertically against a wall. My main problem with these came when I thought they would have been thoroughly watered by the semingly non-stop torrential rain so didn’t venture outside for a week, only to discover later that the pots were standing in a “rain shadow” and were bone dry while almost everything around them was drowning.

Tomatoes have not been a very good story. I put half a dozen plants of different varieties in large pots against what I thought would be a sun-drenched south-facing wall, theoretically exposed to ten hours a day of good warmth and light. The problem has been that the sun thought differently and decided not to shine very often, so they’ve been growing in the cool. Even so, we’ve had a few nice fruits and I’m still hopeful that more will ripen by the end of this month.

I put the fuchsia photo at the top as a reminder that one of the joys has been my small new collection of fuchsia varieties. The photo here was also an experiment, taken with my camera to see whether I could get a good sharp picture. Not as good as with a “proper” camera, but I’m reasonably pleased with it. I’ll write again with some thoughts on photographing garden plants.

Tags: container gardening, Fuchsias, Tomatoes, Veg in pots

Much has happened since November 2009 when I last posted anything here. A long period of illness was followed by a move north from the English East Midlands to Cumbria, just outside the fringes of the Lake District.

Gardening here will be very different. The climate is different, and I’ve moved from large areas of earth to what is, apart from a narrow border in the shade, mostly a collection of pots and other containers against a sunny wall. The shade area will allow me to continue with my enthusiasm for hostas and heucheras. I’m planning also to re-start my fuchsia collection in an area near the house which looks as though it will be ideal for them.

Look out for more as the days pass. I’m back in action.

Tags: container gardening, growing in pots