A little progress

All of Europe seems to be huddling under cold and snow. But here on the farm it was calm and sunny and I had to come indoors to get my sun hat.  That’s a lovely birthday gift.

It wasn’t what you call hot (having had some 29C days in Sydney last week. I Know Hot) but for a spring day on the mountain top, it’s a success to have to remove two fleeces in the middle of the day.

I spent most of the day in the potager.  I’m building the side walls of the paths.  I can get the weedproof fabric down, and hammer in the metal stakes.  But by the early afternoon I realised that I was going to run out of both.  I need more metal stakes for the sides. And that will mean a trip to town.

So instead I decided it was time to haul out the big guns – the deer proof net.

It’s always fun to find it under the shelving in the potting shed and get it into position.

It’s a wonderful piece of kit, and I think I’m going to invest in another (it’s around £70) so that I don’t have to faff around with the cloches agains the deer.

And I realised that the central poles of nice green are a bit redundant now that I cannot grow runner beans up to that height. I’m going for a more low grow system for those this year.

But the green poles will do nicely for the netting on the edges of each quadrant.  And the achillea that are in the middle and seem to have survived the long winter can just be staked when they start to grow.

It’s all fun and games and slow but steady work.

Artur gave me plenty of attention throughout the day. He has taken to drooling a bit which is a new feature of his affection, But I don’t even mind that as he races across the lawn to come and sit on my lap and slow me down even more.