Potting shed plants

artur naughty step 1I am surrounded by animals. We are all hiding in or near the potting shed today.

Beast Number One is cross with me as I am tidying and sorting. And he hasn’t worked out which box or jumper he is going to be snoozing on while this cold snap lasts.

And Beasts Galore are waiting outside the shed for their daily apples.

I normally only have Ulysse and Canaille to tend to. But as Ulysse whinnied with delight with his apple I heard a great thundering of hooves.

The bush telegraph was functioning well on this mountain top. The horse Has Friends. horses cupboard love

I cannot tell these greys apart, so you won’t get their Latin or Greek names. Jean Daniel named all the horses he bred after ancient characters in history. Which is why one is called Atilla. But don’t ask me which.

I just plodded out to feed them apples and race back indoors to keep on working.

My first job was to get all the compost indoors before it was too cold to work the soil. This has been building up over the years in a huge heap (or two) right behind the potting shed.

potting shed orderlyI have the lovely stuff just sitting in buckets and boxes for now.  I will probably put the compost over the newly weeded potager beds.

Except I haven’t made time to weed them just yet. Yep, still ratty looking crops.

So they are stacked. And bothering Artur as he hates changes to his second home.

I don’t like them either as they are heavy and hard to shift. But I don’t want the good stuff exposed to the elements outdoors. So no matter how much he glares, they are going to be in his way.

And the benches are getting cluttered with plants too.  The cosmos seedlings. A few trays of teasels.teasels potted up

Which is ridiculous. They self seed quite well over the potager. Great in floral bouquets. But what a killer in the garden. Their spikes are mean and they grow to poke your eye out height.

But I couldn’t resist collecting the seeds and germinating just for fun.  I didn’t think I’d get any plant action until spring, but they sprouted in their tray and I had to move them up a size. If anyone fancies a few dozen, drop by and I’ll give you the lot.

beans dry to tidyI also have the beans to sort. These are the dwarf French beans drying nicely. It’s a good indoor job to try and unfurl the crispy outer layer and find the dried beans inside. I’ll be using them for next year’s sowing.

I think there are a few hundred more to get out of the potager. But not today.

And here is the winter crop growing well. The eragrostis grasses I grew from seed a few months ago. beans dried

I don’t really need these plants as I have found so many self seeded grasses all over the path leading down to the pool.  The drought really moved these grasses into optimal reproduction. Lots of bare earth around the steep pool bank where the normal lawn grass should have been growing.  But they died, and even the annual weeds died.eragrostis to pot on

I read that eragrostis can become invasive in its native Africa. And it makes sense. It reproduces rather fast and given the right conditions, rather well.

I’ve never seen it spread like this year. So on my list is the fun job of going about the farm, lifting all these new plants and putting them to use. The only stumbling block is I need to thoroughly weed the base of the pool bank bed first.

Spare time anyone?