More mulching

All three of us are mowing hard: the two stallions and me. I’m working the green machine that requires plodding trips up to the top potager to cover the potatoes in mulch. The horses are doing the terraces.   But I think they need to move on to pastures new in the next few days   as the grass is cropped and so are the lower branches of the cherry trees.  I did spend quite a bit of time corralling them into the road so they could work their way down the bank.  And fussing about them a bit.

They have that tremendously intelligent look when you come past with the mower – as if the box of grass clippings is actually a box of apples.  Mind you, they would probably think the grass clippings a gourmet treat. A ready meal.

Because I need to empty the grass catcher so often (damp grass) it has become a much longer job than I had intended.   (I didn’t write tedious, honest.) Luckily I can relieve the ahem, tedium of this chore by listening to talking books in my earphones. And enjoying the knowledge that the weeds will be suppressed for a bit.

It may not work, but I have become quite carried away and covered the weedproof fabric with a mulch of grass as well.  It’s more aesthetically pleasing for a day at least. And then everything fades to grey.   But a pretty top potager would be a change from the usual workmanlike combo of weeds, messy black fabric, and potato plants.

The day actually started in a different direction: I had intended to do a day’s strimming,  but the machine wouldn’t start. I tried and tried, cajoled and begged. And in the end had to put it away and mow instead. I wish I knew what to do to repair it. Spark plugs? I’ll give it a really good clean tomorrow in the hope that a bit of tender loving care of the bits I can sort out might help.

Jean Daniel needs more flowers for St Michel. And as I am on the village flower committee, I really should have known this was the time of year they like to gussy things up. I must plan it better for next year by sowing more flower seeds for the delight of the village. I’m actually going to do a big order of bulbs for the village in November – so much easier than having to water things over the summer.

But I had a rummage in the potting shed and can give them half a dozen nasturtium plants. And cosmos galore. In fact I have so many self sown cosmos plants all about the potager that it gave me an idea. Down with a trowell to the onion bed, and out came about forty little seedlings, more white than the dramatic pinks, but I think they will be fine. I potted them up and hope their roots put on some structure and growth before they are planted out.

And naturally when you are up in the potting shed with too many seedlings for the pots I have decided that the cosmos can self sow in the terraces on the bank next year as well. It was better than chucking the seedlings on the compost heap anyway.  But first things needed weeding. I have done three of the four banks.   The top one is just a vetch patch right now, but that’s fine. I do like the vetch flowers, and as it’s a legume, will fix more nitrogen into the soil; giving me more time to think what to do with the bed.

I didn’t finish until after 8pm. But the weather held out so I couldn’t stop.  And here is the finished mulched product. I dare a weed to peep through this thicket of mulch.