Pea soup progress

I dreaded waking up this morning; I feared it would be bucketing with rain.  We had storms in the night and even thunder which took out the electrics.  But lucky me, it was only drizzling. So that meant I could get on with a huge list of outdoor chores.

All done in a thick pea soup fog, but that was fine. No wind, not too cold and I could still see to rake and slow grass seeds.

I wanted to get all the grass seeds sown on the area below the pool where a tarp and the huge pile of soil had lurked since October.

And re rake the large future lawn area in front of the horn beams.  I had called this the plum garden bank. But there is no real bank anymore. So maybe I should call it the hornbeam garden.  I’ll see if it becomes essence of hornbeam (carpinus betulus) rather than just muddy terrace.

And naturally, I had a last session of planting like mad.  I go back to London tomorrow, so that means all plants have to be in today.

The new top hedge is now planted up.  Lots more hornbeams (of course) plus some eleagnus eggingei, a cotoneaster and I can’t remember what else.

I warn you, I’ve had a large glass of kir  (white wine and home made black currant liqueur) so this might descend to rushed bullet points.

I repositioned the mirabelle  so that it gets more space.  And hope that come spring things will green up nicely.

Artur was very keen to supervise some of the work. He was doing his wellington boot surfing technique of standing on the backs of my boots while I kneeled and planted. It is quite funny, but only if I have every plant or tool in place.

But the drizzle and fog eventually forced him indoors, while I got to work on my mulching.

I did most of the orchard tree mulching last night and couldn’t take any action shots of brown dirt and black compost and sticks of deer proof fencing.

But here in broad daylight – albeit foggy – are the potager beds that I have managed to cover.

I have about 30 more bags of comp0st to go. But at least I’ve made progress earlier than last year.  Actually this time last  year I was still redesigning the entire vegetable garden. So I have no real timespace to judge.  

But I’ve covered the newly planted raspberries and strawberries, and I wanted to get as many of the future brassica beds covered as I could.

These had a hefty cover of horse manure a few months ago; but it’s not as rotted as I would have liked.

One more warm spell and it would have been utterly weed infested.

So I have left the garden and farm in a happy place. Artur is going to be very bored without me to entertain him.  He managed to walk across all my newly raked paths by the end of the day.

Typical, but it looked like a gorgeous chocolate spread; I would have been tempted to stalk across it myself.

But hopefully that’s enough of the study in brown.

Next month, all being well, there will be little grass seed sprouts all over this farm.

I can’t wait.