A soak fest

So tha’s what 200 feet of hose is for. At long last I have filled the barrels up at the top potager. Using a complicated set of links and (quite frankly in desperation) gaffer tape, I managed to join together lots of the yellow hoses and drag the whole thing all the way up to the top of the property. I am now the proud owner of three full barrels of lovely water. Just waiting for some crops to soak. Actually one of the barrels is a small one, which I use for the nettle soaking. And a foul smelling concoction it is too. But you can’t beat it as a free fertilizer. And I do have a perfectly placed crop of nettles just nearby the top plot. They are young at the moment and were quickly yanked out and dumped into the little soaking barrel. One more month or so and it will be the perfect fragrant (i.e. stinky) soup.

I also filled two barrels that I placed outside the potting shed. They will be for the lovely flowers that I will one day grow around the shed as the test bed for the bigger drifts of perennials that will one day grace the slope. We are a long way from a perfect flowerbed now, but it helps to be ready.

It’s a windy and cold day today; our first change of weather since I arrived ten days ago. And it has brought me indoors at the shockingly early time of 4pm. Usually you can’t drag me in until dusk. But my gardening is hampered by only having one eye to see by. On my umpteenth wood carrying trip this afternoon I managed to get a wood chip in the eye. And I don’t know if it is the irritation, a scratch on the lens, or still some annoying foreign body in there, but I can’t see and it is most irksome. I’ve done all I can to wash it out. And even Bernard kindly offered to have a poke about. But I think it’s just time that’s required. And a good night’s sleep. But maybe it’s also a good idea to have an idle late afternoon. Been at it since I arrived with building work, painting and a bit of gardening. And it all starts again tomorrow. Actually even this morning Manu came to do the electrics and Bernard pulled down the last pine cladding on the monster beam in the guesthouse. So there hasn’t been a day without work.