A cover up

Only half a day and it always seems to slip away when it’s time to return to London. Killing caterpillars on the cabbage; sorting in the potting shed; watering stipa seedlings. Generally putting things away and not starting anything big.

But the one thing I have done today is create a perfect little cloche. A winter home for the salads and land cress that has to survive the frosts. It wasn’t that difficult as I really just covered the netted cloche that Bernard made with a heavy duty plastic left over from Bruno’s building work. Application of staple gun, haul it tight and there you have it. Naturally there was a bit of major weeding inside. And planting up of the mizuna, winter salad varieties (forgotten their names – rouge de Montpellier perhaps) and extra mache.

Last tasks involved covering the mint and lemon verbena. I really needed to bring the verbena up to the shed for the winter. But I can’t move it on my own. So need to wait for helping hands. It looks ridiculous with its winter fleece on.

And I just plain ran out of time for the mint. Had planned to pot some up and bring them indoors. But instead I have just slung a bit of plastic cloche over the main bed in the hope they won’t die before next week when I may have more time to perform these prep for winter tasks.