Pete has mentioned a few of the reasons why we would like to move – this house is too small to be both home and office, and as we no longer need to live in this area we would like to live in one which is … well, better (for us, lots of people love it here).
I second those reasons, but I have one of my own – I would like a bigger garden. As you may have noticed, I like gardening. I have an entire blog devoted to gardening. And a podcast. They’re ace, you should check them out.
This garden is fairly large by urban standards (especially with all the garden grabbing going on) – about 20 ft wide by 40 ft long. It has raised beds for growing veggies, a chicken run and an enormous great greenhouse at one end. However, I am a bit of a plant nut, and I am desperate for more space.
It’s impossible to plan a garden until you’ve seen the space, so I can’t really do much toward the new garden during these first 1000 days of the planning phase. All I can do is dream about what I could have if I had the space:
- A veg patch big enough to grow bulky crops like potatoes. And I’ve always wanted asparagus, and Pete likes rhubarb. All bulky.
- A small orchard of fruit trees, some familiar some a little bit more unusual. I like apples; Pete likes plums. And pears. And most things, really. And I would love a medlar, which is an ancient fruit not much grown these days.
- Chickens you can move around. So they can be in the orchard when there’s stuff to eat there, and can be sent to work in the veg patch during the winter. They like grass; we don’t have any here.
- More space to grow leafy veg for the chickens. They go nuts for veggies. Watching them eat is very educational. Low fat protein? Yum. Leafy green veggies? Yum Yum. Carb-rich grain that goes straight to your thighs? YUM!
- A forest garden. A forest garden is one that mimics a natural forest and plants useful or edible plants in every available niche. The result is something that is low maintenance and yet insanely productive – although you have to go beyond conventional veggies to make it work.
- A fedge. Good for keeping people out, encouraging wildlife and growing things like sloes which make lovely sloe gin/ vodka. Again, nice low maintenance feature.
If there was space for all those things, I would be a happy bunny. There’s also a nice-to-have list:
- Ducks. Pete wants ducks. I am happy to have ducks. They would need some water to splash around in.
- A natural swimming pool. I would like some water to splash around in, too, but not the horribly chlorinated sort. A natural swimming pool or pond looks like a normal pond, but is planted with stuff that keeps the water nice and clean. I suspect you run the gauntlet of swimming with frog spawn, though, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys swimming in cold water in spring. I don’t.
- A coppice. Some trees (probably a mix of hazel, willow & other things) designed to be pruned for timber every few years. Either for garden canes, or fire wood, or wood chips.
- A truffle wood or hedge. Trees impregnated with truffle spawn so you can dig up your own truffles each year. Might need a pig though, to find them ;)
That last point is a joke. We have discussed this (at length) and we don’t want a full-blown smallholding with sheep and goats and pigs and cows. We don’t want to kill things.
We reckon a couple of acres would be the most we could manage, and since there’s only an acre of arable land per person give or take (worldwide) then a couple of acres would be our allowance. And we’ll put the house on some of that. Any more land and we’d be duty-bound to feed the neighbours as well. Which we might do, but there’s only one of me so there’s only so much gardening I can do!
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