Pea treats

Rats. Or should I say rodents. All my boasting about the little potting shed being a haven for seeds and potting up. I forgot to put the wire lid on the main box of seeds last night. And as a consequence something has grubbed up about a dozen little pea seeds from their pots. Chastised I have replaced the lid this afternoon and will try to be more careful from now on.

The day was stormy, overcast and threatening. Not the best weather for a day of creative garden work. But it is my last day before I go back on Tuesday so I was determined to make the most of my plans. Lower vegetable garden work. Weeding and maybe even that bit of creative design. Pics to show the mad scheme. I’s just a first draft. And actually the best bit was getting the boundaries determined at last. I have tied just a single piece of string around the perimeter but if I can work out the deer deterrent, it may be all I need. The weeding naturally took hours. By the end of the spring I hope to have worked out some sort of weed proof strategy. Perhaps getting a chipping machine to render all those pruned branches in the forest into a great ground cover mulch and then putting down another fabric to stop the endless march of weeds.

In the meantime I have weeded to within an inch of that garden’s life. Planted 30 lettuces (deer food?) and had a glorious half hour’s watering. Watering is definitely the reward for good behaviour. Am I the only one who gets such pleasure from hanging about with a hose in hand, drenching plants and making patterns in the soil? Bliss. Even the strawberry bed wasn’t neglected. All got a great soak. The little broad bean plants are poking up bravely above the soil, and some of the peas even survived my negligent hoeing. Awful to rake your way across the bed and realize too late that you have decapitated a pea plant.

If the rodents don’t get all the ones in the potting shed by mid-March I will be able to plant out replacements.