Mulching, mounding and mache
Bits of gardening today: but fun nonetheless. I am trying to clear out as many plants as I can from the potting shed. And the autumn sown lambs lettuce (mache in French) was ready to face the cold soil of the veggie bed. I have a few dozen here that might take and thrive. Naturally I have placed a cloche over the top of them to keep out any grazing herds. And will find the place smothered in weeds in a few weeks time. But I needed the room on the staging for all my seeds.
The soil in the vegetable garden is thinly covered in my lovely manure from Leslie and Teo’s and I must confess that I am looting happily. The grasses (mostly miscanthus) that edge the lawn have had their annual chop. And I decided that the best way to delineate them from the surrounding lawn now that they don’t stick up above the long grass, was to cover them in a thick mulch. That way I won’t mow over them when we do the first lawn cutting next month.
The far end grass was actually a calamagrostis Karl Foerster planted by mistake. It has now been swapped for a miscanthus gracillimus which was growing rather well on one of the terrace bank beds above the potting shed. Â I should now have a complete set of the right sort of grasses this year.
I am also planning ahead for the first major watering. The hedge has to be watered with a bucket of water for each plant at least. And that won’t work if the water just runs off down the hill. Gardening on steep gradients requires a bit of careful planning.
So in a perfect emulation of a kid at a beach, I have set to with my bucket and spade and spent a happy hour creating mounds.
Each plant has to have a mound of earth around them that is high enough to take a soaking from the house. It was quite fun really as the weeds haven’t germinated (yet) on this soil. I was competing with the sunset to get it all done. There are thirty two plants in the hedge in all, but I managed it before it was well and truly dark and time to down toys and come inside for a bath. 