Favourite things

The potting shed. In the cool of mid morning before the sun blazes down. It is easily my favourite place. I had so many plants that need to go up a size.

Every plant in summer needs a daily watering, so I have to give them all the help I can give them.

And that means using up the last of my lovely Floragard compost on the essential crops first: lettuce.

I now have dozens which have survived the sowing and pricking out stage and look like happy little plants.   The three varieties I sowed are supposed to be slow to bolt, so I’m full of hope that we will be eating good lettuce later this month.

I think I might keep them here in the potting shed rather than sending them out the hot garden. I can water them more efficiently here.

I had to work my way around my little assistant with the water. He kept climbing into the watering box and drinking up the dregs.

He just stands there cooling his feet and yowling at me if I try to ease him out of the box so I can water the plants. I guess it’s the equivalent of a human dip in the pool.

Luckily he tired of the sport after a bit and left me to go and snooze on the little table in front of the door. (It gets a good breeze.)

And I was able to charge through the rest of the little plants that needed work.

Earlier in the day I took my weedproof fabric and scissors down to the plum terrace to try and sort out the bank.

I had landscaped it so that there would be a small bank in between the thyme plants on the bottom of the garden, and the perovskia and rosemary on the upper level.

It worked perfectly. Until the weeds grew.   So I have to find a way to keep them down. I cut a long thin strip of fabric. And secured it in place with sticks. These chestnut sticks had to be cut to size, secured in the ground and then eased up under the horizontal chestnuts that make the little fence.

Next up I need to hide everything with mulch.   I would normally just go and mow a lawn or three and empty the lawn clippings onto the fabric. That’s why there are so many cross sticks on the wall. I will have to stuff the grass in behind to keep them falling down.

But there are no lawns to mow. It’s too dry and hot. So the finished look will have to wait.

I had better luck with the little banks in the calabert garden. Here the slope is not as steep, so I was able to secure the fabric with stones. And they definitely hide the fabric.