Roots, Roses, and My June Garden Plans

I've been a gardener for many years, but this is the first time I'm sitting down and trying to write about it. It feels amazing and strange that I am talking about gardening on this blog, especially since my business is focused on public speaking and yoga. But the thing that connects my work to this website and my garden is a grounding sense of stability, and confidence in the way that you show up in the world.

Finding Grounding Off the Mat

My garden is my sanctuary; it is part of how I achieve this for myself. My work in my garden keeps me connected, keeps me grounded, and gives me a reason not to be on my phone. It moves my mind and body into a space of letting go of all the stress, allowing me to be fully present and focused on something that exists in the now. But it is also, principally, about investment in the future.

My Garden February 2022

This was the garden in its original layout just before I moved in.

Splitting the Space: The Garden vs. The Allotment

Progress by March 2024

The garden is now split into two sections, separated by a picket fence.

As this is the first time I am writing about my garden, I should share with you a little background. I built my current garden about three and a half years ago. Prior to that, I had a council allotment which I kept for about four years. My current garden is at my home, where I've split the space into two: the front half is what I refer to as "the garden," and the back half is what I refer to as "the allotment." It's not a genuine allotment in the sense that it’s never been council-operated; it's a vegetable garden, and it is where I spend most of my gardening time.

Perennials, Free Plants, and a Very Naughty Spaniel

I started this garden with just one bed and a lot of ambition. I split it in half with a small picket fence so that I could have a clear distinction between the spaces, and also to stop my dogs from getting into the vegetables. My Cocker Spaniel, Peanut, particularly enjoys eating all the brassicas and has done untold damage to past crops! Now, I have seven beds and a greenhouse. The seventh bed is only just coming into operation this year.

Up until this year, I have focused largely on foundational planting and perennials. Because I live a busy life, I don't want to be a slave to my allotment space or my garden; I want it to largely take care of itself. So, I have very carefully chosen plants that will do just that. I've prioritised fruit like strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, and a blackcurrant bush that I brought home from a market in France. Every time I look at it, it gives me beautiful memories of that holiday. I also have a lot of perennial herbs. I’ve got four sages in the garden, multiple thyme plants, marjoram, oregano, tarragon, parsley, several mints, and lemon balm. I am fully self-sufficient in herbs.

Earlier this year, I started an apothecary bed. I've planted valerian, calendula, echinacea, and some verbena for a little cottage-garden vibe. I loosely follow no-dig and permaculture principles in my garden, so I like big, rich beds filled with mixed planting schemes. I love to intermingle flowers within my vegetable crops. A lot of these flowers self-seed, so this year in the garden I've got some volunteer foxgloves, cornflowers, and nigella which are very happily looking after themselves. My raspberries are in their second year, so they are expanding beautifully in the fruit bed. Plant once and then get free plants in the future!

My David Austin Desdemona

A Future Filled with Roses

In the main garden, my lawn is very tatty. I dislike it and would like, one day, to replace it with a patio, an entertaining space, and some lovely borders where I can explore more ornamental planting. But that's for the future. I do have several roses, and they are fully in bloom as of the end of May. My David Austin Desdemona is possibly my favourite. My first rose was a David Austin Lady Salisbury, and a couple of years ago I added David Austin Emily Brontë to the collection and which is coming into bloom now. It looks stunning and has one of the best scents of all the roses. When I work on my garden at some point in the future, I wish to fill it with roses: big ones with heady perfumes that you can smell into the long summer evenings.

The Joy of Self of Sufficiency

Back in the allotment, vegetable gardening is really where my passion lies. I'm passionate about understanding where food comes from and minimising our reliance on supermarkets. We saw during the pandemic, and since Brexit, how these food networks are not super secure. My aim is to be self-sufficient in the core vegetables that I use most frequently. I have achieved this with herbs, and I am doing well with salad vegetables. I've also achieved it with spring onions through a combination of sowing traditional spring onions and planting perennial Welsh onions, which grow and divide themselves so you can just cut and come again. My next aim is always to be self-sufficient in tomatoes and garlic, both of which I managed last year. I am still taking tomatoes and bulbs of garlic directly out of my stores and supplies that came right from my garden.

What’s Growing in June

Peanut the cabbage eater!

Coming into June, this is really where the garden starts to feel most alive. Plants are establishing, blossoming, and I'm starting to plant out the seedlings that I've spent several months cultivating in the greenhouse or indoors on a windowsill. I feel – and I hesitate to put this out in the world in case I jinx myself – that this is the first year I feel really on top of what's going on in the allotment. I feel much more confident in my ability as a gardener, but also in my knowledge of what I really need and what works well for me to grow. In my first allotment in the early days, I would just grow anything and everything just to see what would happen. Now, I really focus on the things I know I'm going to use and want to eat, though sometimes that means leaving space for experimenting, too.

Working on mixed permaculture beds, the main bed that I'm planting up now has a mixture of flowers, green leaves, and salads. I have leeks and beetroot on one side, and on the other side, I have my brassicas: only kale at the moment, because Peanut ate my cabbages! These are mixed in with carrots, onions, and as many flowers as possible. My garlic is also in here. I didn't plan to grow garlic this year, as I have plenty left in stores from last year, but it turns out I missed some during the harvest. They started sprouting, so I dug them up and planted them out, and they're doing quite well.

In the first half of June, I will be planting out sweetcorn, which I'm growing for the first time. I've decided that I'm going to try the "Three Sisters" method, so I have sweetcorn, pumpkins, and climbing beans which I'm going to grow together. The pumpkins will fill out the space underneath, and the beans will use the corn for support, maximising crops from the same space.

I also want to take some rose cuttings this month. I love my roses, and I'd love to have more of them, but taking cuttings has been something that I have been hesitant about, maybe a little afraid of. I think this is the year. It would have been ideal to do them last month, before they came into flower, while they were still softwood, but I think there's enough new growth to make it worth an experiment.

Gifting My Future Self

I'll be continuing with sowing some seeds, although in June and July I don't sow as many as I will in August and September, or as many as I did in March and April. The seeds that I will be sowing are to continue with succession sowing of some of the more delicate herbs: basil, coriander, and dill. I'll be sowing some chard because it always grows well, and I tend to use it instead of spinach. For some reason, I've always really struggled to grow spinach in my garden! I'll also grow another succession of lettuce seeds and spring onions.

Finally, I want to gift my future self and really make my garden as productive as possible in the winter months this year. This is something that I have always wanted to do but have struggled to achieve in previous years. So, this month, I'll also sow some more cabbages, some cauliflower, maybe a couple more kale, and I will keep finding places to tuck in carrots.

I’ve probably forgotten half of what’s really going on, but I hope this offers a little peek into my sanctuary, the space where I always want to be. I do hope that you’ll come back and follow along for future updates on the garden.

See the Allotment in Action

Writing about the garden is one thing, but seeing the space come to life is another. If you'd like to step into the allotment with me, watch my video walk-through on YouTube:

Can't see the video player above? Click here to watch the May Allotment Tour for a live walk-through of the plot.