Radical changes ahead in 2012 - Purpleveg moves!

The purple veg blog has lain fallow for a few months, but with spring and other changes approaching... we’re back! The reason for this lack of activity is partly because of the autumn and winter weather, but there are also more subtle reasons. In the past 4 months my home life has been turned on its head, and it’s interesting how this has affected my relationship with my garden too.

After only 3 years in this house (and 4 years of marriage), my husband and I are splitting up (we have been discussing this since October). For financial reasons we have decided to sell the house, and my plan (fingers crossed!!) is to then buy a smaller place on my own. Needless to say, “sole use of the garden” is top of my list of requirements… Coming to terms with these lifestyle changes hasn’t been, and still isn’t, easy. I found it too heartbreaking at first to be investing emotionally in growing things in a garden that doesn’t have a future (with me). Also the garden was winding down towards the darker months, and I know that you have a lot more leeway in this period - you can almost always catch up later in spring. So gardening wasn’t very urgent.

Now, 4 months later, I find it less shocking to look at my garden and think “I’m not going to get to see it flower and fruit in the summer”, and so I can start to be practical about what needs to be done for my upcoming move. I plan to record the whole process in this blog , so if you’re reading this I hope you will find it interesting!

Despite the autumn neglect (fallen leaves didn’t get swept up, pots with summer crops such as basil didn’t get emptied and put away), winter flowers still did their thing so in January I had some very welcome flowers: in the first few weeks of the year, which coincided with very mild weather, the primroses and one of the irises flowered (it all got obliterated with the snow at the beginning of February). And the skimmia japonica and the sarcococca (Christmas box) also flowered, as they have been doing for the past 3 winters (I bought them on my first year).

Blue iris and yellow primrose, in flower 15 January