A project

That’s the great thing about showers in winter. Our water supply is so abundant from heavy rain that there is plenty of time to indulge in very long hot showers without worrying about running out.   And that is my plotting spot.

I have come up with an idea about how to keep my freshly dug and prepared metre wide beds in the potager tidy. And weed low.   There is no such thing as weed free.

But I have decided that if I ask nicely, I can get a huge number of chestnut poles, about four inches in diameter thick, chain sawed in the forest and I can then corrall each bed with wood, and put a weed proof fabric in the paths and up the sides of the beds.   And secure them with a chestnut pole. Simples.

I think it will require photography to explain what I mean. For now I’m just at the digging stage. And the hoeing of the last of the green manure (mustard) from the beds and giving everything a general tidy.

But I haven’t been at it all day. It just feels like that.   No. I finished the last of the chipping.   Well chipping and mulching never stops. But for now I am so pleased with my huge tally of mulched beds that I’ve cleaned the machine and put it away for a spell.

There is a bit of area at the back of the soft fruit orchard that I ought to mulch.   But it will serve no purpose except for aesthetic pleasure as nothing grows there.   It is the concrete lid of the septic tank.   Ah yes, the grass grows greener and all that.   I just lob a basic store bought mulch for that.   I don’t want to waste hard cut and hauled and chipped and mulched wood for that.   I could be mulching the lavender bed instead.

But for now I can happily tick off my list the shade garden, the plum garden, the soft fruit orchard and the lower calabert beds on my long, long Winter Garden Tasks List.   That feels wonderful.

I’ll have to put the chestnut poles onto my early spring list, or later winter garden tasks.  Â  That’s the fun of the new year and the new notebook. One is terribly neat and orderly.

I promise it will all go downhill as soon as the weeds start growing.