Back to the garden

Ah, at long, long last. The house renovations are complete. The five guests are in, and the month long serious toil of getting a barn turned into a home is over.

Which means that I can actually turn to the garden again. I have neglected it (and this blog) for too long.   My first start was to go up to the rain gauge and have a look. Half an inch. Fabulous. We had that wonderful thunder and lightning show last night – complete with the electrics tripping out and cooking by candlelight.   And rain.   So it looks as if the garden and I have started from a great point.

The soil is soft so I can plant all those poor things that have been languishing in pots. And plant myself into the middle of the potager and weed, weed, weed.

Hours later I can’t say I achieved a lot. It feels like holiday fever. Not able to settle.   But I have planted out the aquilegias up under the mirabelles.   And as a bonus, eaten a few of those plums too.   Everything is coming into ripeness.

There are dark plums for the first time in quantity on the three trees just in front of the house. They had a radical prune two years ago, and it has paid off.   Naturally it’s going to be a challenge to pick them as they are hanging over a steep slope. But no pain,  no gain; I’ll put the task on my to do list tomorrow.   And what a treat to write ‘pick plums’ rather than find tubing for cooker hood, buy mastic for windows, and buy more paint.

I have planted out half a dozen rocket seedlings in the big barrel at the bottom of the herb garden.   They should be protected under the leaves of the Italian zucchini plants. They are fruiting. But sporadically.

Next up (along with entertaining a visiting eight year old house guest) was to weed the beans for the first time. I am trying to weed out the dying and dried sweet pea beans at the same time; I want to keep the seeds for next year. But it’s a bit of a lottery – you don’t want to pull out the productive bean as you yank on a dying sweet pea tendril.   But this isn’t a bad start.