Well, Green Fingered Fans, it’s been an interesting year for us gardeners. With not one, but 2 blasts from the Beast from the East and then a few months later the garden was torched, with a hot, dry summer.

As we come to the end of the year, I’ve made up a daft festive song, celebrating the harvest and later in the blog I’ve wrote some of my RHS Young Ambassador Highlights.

How’s your garden grown this year?!?!?

Festive greetings from my garden

My Mum, Dad and I have worked hard in different areas of the garden this year. My Dad has done more landscaping in the top garden and together we’ve started to transform the front garden. Whilst our new greenhouse has helped us grow more plants from seed, especially veggies and herbs.

Mum and I enjoyed harvesting & cooking the veggies, which inspired this twist on a classic Christmas Carol, my 12 days of harvest song, filmed over the summer and autumn:

• 12 fragrant bay leaves – we grew lots of other herbs too, including some beautiful, heady, herby Greek basil
• 11 dirty shallots – always a staple in our garden, as well as white and red onions. They grow so well and are quickly scoffed in lots of grub, made by Mum
• 10 new potatoes – actually, they were a bit hit and miss this year! I also got to plant some in the Blue Peter Garden 
• 9 ripe blackberries – well maybe not in our garden, but we do grow blackcurrants, which we harvested to make some delish jam. The blackberries were picked on a walk with my Buddy
• 8 golden sunrise – this year is one of the first times that tomatoes have actually ripened! We used them and the Greek basil to make bruschetta
• 7 baking apples – the Young Operation Farmers and other volunteers picked nearly a tonne this year, some of which were peeled by People First Tameside for The Harvest Festival
• 6 crapaudine beetroot – a parsnip shaped heritage variety, which we first saw on Masterchef
• 5 pea pods – one of my favs, planted out in toilet roll holders, not a single pea made it to the pan, we scoffed the lot, raw!
• 4 cucumbers – I cared for those huge cucumber plants like they were my babies! But they soon rewarded me with their lovely yummy fruit !
• 3 crunchy carrots – defo the best carrots I’ve grown this year, my little friend Betty helped me to harvest them
• 2 courgette flowers – Mum’s favourite way to cook the flowers is to tempura them
• 1 padron pepper – the first one we tried was the one in ten, that is hot, hot, hot!!!

Have a watch of the video here:

Not everything has been a success though; the Beast from the East blasted through the garden and destroyed some of the Mediterranean herbs, whilst the summer sun seems to have put an end to Mum’s favourite tree, the willow (we’re hoping somehow it comes back to life next spring)

RHS Young Ambassador 2018 Highlights

As the RHS Young Ambassador for the Campaign for School Gardening, I’ve had another cracking year:

• One of the best thing I enjoy is visiting school gardens and I was absolutely well chuffed to be asked to open Holden Clough Primary School’s new garden
• For the second year I had a seed planting stall at St Mary’s RC Primary School, which was great, as some of the kids told me about how their plants had grown from the previous year
• In May I headed down to London for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – WOW, I just love that place
• A bit of responsibility for my second flower show of the year, RHS Chatsworth, where I was a judge in the Grow Green Planters Competition
• In July, I went to RHS Tatton Flower Show, where I was interviewed by BBC Manchester
• In October I was Wild About Worms, for Wild About Gardens Week, with a video filmed and edited by ex-Blue Peter presenter, Barney Harwood
• Finally, I’m most proud of the #ICanGrow work I’ve done with The Young Operation Farmers and more importantly I’ve made some great friends

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It’s been a great year, with lots of highs and only a few lows, but all in all its been an adventure in many ways. I hope your gardening year has been as good as mine and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2019!

Green fingered George over and out__ (drop the mic!)