Bean (sowing) feast

I had brought out a red currant plant which needed to go into the soft fruit orchard first.   Luckily my ground was prepared. I had laboriously built up the ground last year in covering this part of the garden with mulch, weeds, and weedproof fabric.

The result is some rather lovely soil, weed free and ready for plants.   I have a dozen or so cuttings that are sulking in the potting shed that could go here, but I need more redcurrants.   The main plant I have is sad and dare I say it, ailing.   So replacements welcome.

I added a few dozen extra crocosmia corms – mostly Emily McKenzies – as this is going to be a vibrant bed in the future.   Once the fruit is over there is very little happening in this huge part of the vegetable garden.   So if the rest of the crocosmias have survived the freeze it might be a colourful treat.

My best treat was the arrival of Artur early in the morning.   And for once he didn’t go through his two day sulk. Instead he purred and yowled and paid me a lot of attention all day.

I have brought out a new rain gauge to replace my lovely one from Australia which suffered in the cold.   This Rainex one promises to cope with all weathers. Polycarbonate and UV, all the bells and whistles.

I dared to go into my potting shed (which is a tip) to retrieve some tools to get started on the main task of the day.   Sowing.   I hoed the top left quadrant of the potager and then set to with the tape measure.

I am designing a swoosh of leeks in each bed, and a central area for beans.   So I set up my poles and placed the central square and then worked outwards from there.   Two long rows of peas, four smaller rows of broad beans.   It took hours, but with the blazing sun (sunhat required) it was a delight.

And Artur helped.   He managed to roll in most of the beds I carefully hoed and cleared.  Â  I’ve sowed seeds, and then added an extra layer of compost, followed by a top layer of cheap mulch.   These beds never get enough manure or food.   So I have taken to selectively feeding each row of seeds with this extra mulch and compost.   That way I’m not feeding between the rows with necessary goodness.   The weeds are bad enough as it is.

It all looks a bit complicated right now.   But I need to keep the deer off, and stop Artur from rolling all over the young plants. So it’s cloches and sharp sticks all the way.

I had some bags of the mulch left over. It’s very cheap and cheerful.   But it does a good job of suppressing some of the weeds.

So I thought it a good idea to cover the wide path that has been created since the building of the new potager wall.

Right now it’s a beautiful blank canvas.   I had first thought to plant a hornbean hedge along here. And I may still do so.   But this year I thought it might be fun to sow and plant all the potager flowers along this long axis.   I usually rely on self sown cosmos, but I wonder if they are alive after this cold winter.   Will I be forced to sow them again? Perish the thought. If you look back over my summer vegetable garden you will know that this is a veritable cosmos forest in August.   I shall wait and see what germinates this month before I commit.

And then in the late afternoon I braved the potting shed.   I have to sort through all the stored plants and see what is alive.   I can tell that I’ve lost of my bupleurum plants, and much more.   But I can barely get in the door for clutter. So out came plants and I started to try and create a bit of order.

I have 27 lavender grosso plants.   They are to go (I think) in the new bed I’m planning in front of the house.   But that’s the tyranny of this huge long garden.   Anywhere else and you would say 27 plants – marvellous.   But here they look puny. I will need 33 more just to fill the area I had planned. Goodness only knows where I’m going to get that many plants (and cheaply).   Maybe I’ll just do half the area properly now and then work on the rest of the area another time.

But what am I doing thinking of yet another bed of flowers and shrubs? There are crops to sow, the top vegetable bed to weed, a whole huge potager to cover in mulch, ornamental grasses to move and cut back, sticks to chip for a more permanent mulch.   Oh, and 30 of the thyme plants to get into position on the last new landscaped bed in front of this terrace.

Sleep? No time for that.