The house is set within just under an acre of grounds. The area to the south of the house is made up of two vegetable gardens, and, to the east of them, the beginnings of an orchard and a grassy area. There is also a pond and an area that has seasonal streams and which, in wet weather, becomes impressively boggy. That area will be left wild as a healthy environment for small critters - we need to keep some of the land for them. We have started to plant a small number of fast growing trees there that we hope to harvest for our wood burner. So far that is two willows and one oak - well, three is a small number, isn't it?

The pond, grassy area and fruit trees June 2006 and May 2008
The potagers and wild area June 2006 and September 2007
The west face of the house June 2006 and September 2007

The continuing development of the garden is a regular source of comment in our Blog at blog.channing.info (or follow the link above). The blog is generally updated weekly (on Sunday) and we regularly cover progress on the garden and other projects we have on the go. Our specific garden blog at garden.beaugut.com, which is updated less frequently, is dedicated to the fruit and vegetable gardening that we do.

At this point I have to say that, as novice vegetable growers, we receive a great deal of help, advice and support from members of the Grapevine, a discussion forum run under the auspices of Grow Your Own magazine. For planning and recording our gardening activities, we are finding the inexpensive Vegetable Gardeners' Almanac software most helpful.

We are hoping, within a relatively short time, to be at least 80% self-sufficient in vegetables, although holding one's breath is still to be regarded as a hazardous pursuit.

In the meantime, we have planted more than a dozen trees in the past two years, and have plans for more - so I think we have done our trendy carbon offset!