Looting

I have been hunting grasses all day.   It’s a strange activity but quite satisfying.   On paper the idea looks great; smother the bank in grasses to improve the rather bland landscape of random weeds and mulch.   After all, that’s what nature does all over this mountain top.   But after a day and a half of work, I am not quite sure of the results.  

It all looks a bit green and fluffy and, well, ordinary.   Maybe that’s the trick of some landscaping; it looks effortless. But right now it just looks like any un-landscaped part of the natural terraces around.

I have snuck in a few euphorbias in among the biggest of the grasses.   And I curse not ordering another few hundred bulbs: all the soil is soft and just perfect for a mass planting of tulips and daffs in among the grasses. Maybe next year.

And I’m now thinking that maybe I should use the grasses as a mulch in and around the shrubs on the other side of the path.   Just to try and balance things out.   But I can’t do that yet as I’m hoping that all the small plants I’m growing on will be planted out and bulk out the beds.

I’m sitting here in the living room listening to a fireworks display inside the fireplace. Cracking and crackling pine logs in the open fire.   But the drizzle and the glowering sky meant I had to down tools half an hour earlier than usual.   Winter is frustrating when you are just desperate to get as much work down outdoors.

Earlier in the day I ducked over to St Michel and added two bags of mulch to the new bed next to the mayor’s office.   And delivered pots of paperwhite bulbs to friends in the eco hamlet.   So good deeds done.  Â  It’s growing by a house each time I visit. A very impressive project.   Dario’s house is half way there, and I swear I never noticed that straw bale two storey house to his right last time I went.

Tomorrow I’ll try and finish the rest of the bed and then get started on a mass weeding of the soft fruit orchard.

Oh yes, and here’s what I forgot to mention yesterday: I straightened the wonky path on the potager.   I love how everything is on an angle on this farm.

I noticed how crooked the vegetable garden was when I was planting out the strawberries.   So I have now made a proper path.   I still have no idea whether I’m going to order 50 hornbeam hedging trees and put them in. Or just have an extravagantly large edge to the garden to permit the passage of a wheelbarrow without snagging on the chestnut walls on the narrow paths.

It will depend on whether I sell lots of jams at the Christmas Fare next month.   And on that note I think it’s toast and jam time. And a cup of tea.