Soothing balm

I have come indoors to apply a bit of soothing lotion to my welts.   I have been brambled and raspberries and need to attend.

This morning saw the departure of the last of the summer house guests. So lovely to have such fun company for a week.   And now it is a week back in the garden.   Weeds await.

First up was the neglected top vegetable garden. I have only been coming up here to pick raspberries and it’s amazing what you can avoid. This picture is a jungle. But it was a part of the garden that had the broad beans and peas. Now it’s an area where the cat can hide and I wouldn’t find him for a week.

Out came the weeds; I raked, made the cat cross because he lost his shade, and then I sowed a green manure of clover.   It looks almost decent now.

I need to do a bit more work on the other side of the raspberry bed.   But I did manage to tie them back with my lovely 1000m of baling string.   It was a fun and lacerating process, but at least I managed a feed while I worked.

Then it was time to crawl in under the cabbage and parsnip bed and pull out the weeds.   And plant some parsley. I have so many small parsley plants that they are going to be a feature of the autumn garden. I have to dot them everywhere.

Artur gave up on me as the sun was blazing by now. And I was ready to give up too.   But that tahsome protestant work ethic meant I couldn’t go in for lunch until I had it all tidied away.

Hurrah. Afternoon indoors. The weather is warming up now and I am going to have to restrict my gardening to the early morning and early evening hours.

One office tidied nicely away and orderly.  

I do have a big project in the potting shed. Propagating and sorting. So I celebrated a quiet calm early evening by tidying like mad (it’s catching) and trying to reduce the plant load.

I have so many parsley plants, that will teach me to germinate so well.   So  I have decided to pot them into one container and save on the endless watering.

This is one hot room in the heat of summer. All the windows are open and I am watering twice a day.

But some of my little plants are too small to put out just yet. I have managed to end up with about 40 small eucalyptus seedlings. Madly exciting to see them grow, and they even smell like a mini Australian forest already.

Don’t ask me what on earth I’m going to do with them. I have no idea if they can manage to live over the winter.   But it’s too much fun for now not to have a go.

I also have a few trays of fennel seedlings, endless perilla, and yet more basil.

Oh yes, and the latest production of eragrostis. Sowing time starts again. As I walk past the calabert garden en route for the potting shed I tend to grab a handful of eragrostis seeds from the ripe.. err seeds. Inflorescences? No idea.

If I had any energy I’d find out, but I’m flagging.   but I have sown heaps.   Autumn grasses here I come.