A wandering weed

You know that feeling where growth is everywhere, most of it weed, and you don’t know where to start? It’s a sort of spring time distraction syndrome.  You do a bit here and a bit there and seem to wander off list.

For some reason I decided to pull out the weeds in the shade garden first up. I was actually going to plant phlomis but that didn’t happen. Weeds are more consuming.

But this lovely soft soil and the lack of rain meant I had a good plan of attack.  Heaps went on the compost heap.

And I finished off the strawberry bed too.  That went quickly.  And I used up the last two cheap compost sacks to mulch the soil.  I need about four more sacks at least to get this area that is now weed free to stay that way. 

Next time.

I had gone up to town first thing and came back with compost.

I couldn’t get my usual Floragard but the aqua type will do.  I potted on yet more cosmos and calabrese and tried as best I could to get the plants ready for my departure.  I hid the smallest of the seedlings under a fleece in the middle of the room and some right underneath the table.

Fingers crossed they don’t die of thirst. All that work….

Artur is not madly pleased that all the windows are now open; he is in that box at the far end of the staging glaring at me for making it too cool in his favourite snooze spot.  But plants come first for now.

The weather was strange today; it was almost mild and calm but very foggy. The sort of day when you have no idea of time.  I went indoors to check and discovered, to my joy, it was only 4pm. I thought it was six.

One large cup of tea and a slice of fruit bread later and I oozed out to the potager to build yet more supports.

This time it’s the cabbage beds.  I need to cover them with special netting to protect them from the dreaded cabbage moth and the cloches I have now are just too small. Curved means less plants.

So it’s on with the rustic constructions. I’m getting faster at them and they are less chaotic.  But this potager is crying out for plants.  Two weeks to go.

And I even managed to hoe and rake the beds underneath so they stay weed free. There are baby cosmos seedlings trying to come through. And after sowing the seven new varieties, I don’t want to have the old.

And speaking of new. I do love my tulips in the middle of the space. Luminous in this low light. Abu Hassans. Heavenly.

I had just enough time to do a mad first pass at the weeds that are growing lustily out of the paths of the potager.

Much neater now. I didn’t have the daylight to take a shot of the newly cleared gravel and granite that flanks my pretty potager (I am boasting) but I might mooch about tomorrow. I left the huge bag of weeds on the edge of the path – it was way too heavy to lift in one go.