A mighty mulch

Why anyone would chose to plant up a veggie garden and lay a straw mulch in a wet gale is beyond me. Bit it was my first full day in the garden for a week and I was yearning to get it done. Madness of course. More straw blew off the beds than stayed on at a few blustery moments but I thought I was winning. Tomorrow will show.

In a desperate attempt to keep the straw settled on the bed I found myself watering the straw with the hose. In a light rainstorm. Hoping that no one would see this odd behaviour. ‘Oh look there’s that mad foreign woman, watering her garden in the rain’. But I had to get that straw to stick somehow. It was hauled up from the lower stable in sacks. Endless loads as I realised just how large my vegetable garden is.

And it was done amid great straw dust induced sneezes. Adding to the ones from my now heavy cold. A charming snivelling sight as I trudged endlessly up and down with the wheelbarrow and the wayward bags of straw. They did tend to fall off at crucial moments in the blustery bits. But I’m quite pleased with the work. I just know I will never have this garden weed free if I’m away for two weeks at a stretch. This straw won’t keep them all down. But at least the sight of the main garden won’t be a sharp intake of breath at the array of all the weeds. And believe me, weeds seem to shoot up fully formed and a foot high overnight. This rain is perfect for that.

Earlier I planted out yet more cabbage in the brassica bed, interspersed with chives. This brassica bed is almost complete. Insane to have it so early in the year; but I have so much to get done that I just have to hope that a late frost/hungry deer/ marauding wild boar won’t find all those juicy young shoots and wipe out the crop.