A plant fest
It’s warm work outside. Layers are being shed all over the garden. I have come in for lunch after mulching the soft fruit trees and before I started on the peas and beans. There is to be a mass planting this afternoon. Doors are wide open in both houses to air them and the birds are making a racket worthy of a dawn chorus.
I started day with a walk through of strimming task with JB (he is off to make a lot of noise on the lower terraces). And then it was haul out the seedlings, and on with work.
Gad what didn’t I plant today? Aubergines, climbing French beans, cucumbers, more and yet more peas (had to shoehorn them into non existent gaps at the ends of all rows. And I even ruined my mad symmetrical perfection quest by making one of the rows longer than the other two. Shame on me. I bet there is a potager guild that forbids such behaviour.
Planted a row of marigolds in between the carrots. And now it’s after nine pm and I realise I didn’t properly water them in. Rats. JB called me away to help feed the thread on the strimmer and I must have lost my train of thought after the break.
The scent of the wisteria on the front of the house was a welcome distraction from mulch. And every time I looked up from the black plastic, brown dirt and pots, I could see the beautiful little clematis snaking its way up the grape vine in the strawberry bed. Dozens more buds – so this sunshine ought to bring them out in a rash.
Even the irises in the edge of the potager put on a show. Didn’t know we had them. Goodness only knows what happened to the poor bulbs last year.
The potatoes have been earthed up, the poppy Patty’s Plum found a place in the little stipa grass and flower bed at the end of the lawn, and why, I even added to the soft fruit area by putting in two more blueberry plants. Wish I had a dozen, they start off by offering just a handful of fruit each year, but give them time and time away from passing deer, and they may make us a compote of fruit yet.
Oh yes, and I planted sunflowers. Where? Why in amongst the peas of course. Once the peas are over these nifty climbing frames will have to earn their keep.
And here are the terraces now they have had their first haircut. Tidy. Won’t last, but I do like to start well. Actually JB’s main job was to remove lots of sticks and branches that had accumulated in piles on the banks and in an untidy heap. So unsightly when one sits on the terrace and instead of admiring the view, hones in on the one blemish in an otherwise spectacular row of terraces.