In 1972 I fell in love with an ancient Elizabethan thatched cottage in the Hampshire countryside, which was surrounded by an area of grass, three ancient trees but no garden. ÒAn Incompetent GardenerÕs TaleÓ is not so much about gardening as about creating what is now, some forty years later, a mature garden. The Tale is also about the animals, birds and insects I have welcomed into my haven for wild life. Over the years my ever-ready camera has recorded many of these visitors (some more welcome than others) and these photographs are part of my story. But these animals are strictly excluded from my new raised bed vegetable plot, including, by a wire roof, the pigeons, but alas not the cabbage white butterflies! And then there are my successes, and just as important my failures, in choosing and growing the gardenÕs shrubs, trees and plants. Not for me are ÔNew AgeÕ gardens, as you will see in ÔFads and FanciesÕ. My garden diaries, kept over the years, proved indispensible.