Working backwards

Oh this is hard, trying to recreate what I spent a few frantic days doing.   But starting from the pictures I can get an idea and try and spell it out.   I seem to recall I spent an age on Sunday watering all the little seedlings – really watering them. Putting them in a large basin of water and waiting for them to soak all the way through.

I decided (in some sort of triage) to put the largest of the seedlings on the north side of the potting shed, and move the tiddlers to the shade of the calabert. It did mean that if there was to be any rain during the week (and so far there is none) they would get a drink. And not suffer as much because they were in deeper pots.

The tiddlers wouldn’t stand a chance out there in the elements: I seem to have almost 120 verbena bonariensis seedlings among all the flower and veg sowings.   Everything was coming along so quickly I had to prick them out. Despite rather wishing they would stop growing for a bit and just go into suspended animation.

Trekking back and forth along the track to the barn with armfuls of pots made me do a lot of pondering. I really need to rebuild this path that was created by chickens and humans over twenty years ago. It is where it is, and could do with a spot of creative repair.

I was going to stack all the trays in the wheelbarrow and carry them down that way; but there is a playful group of rocks that stick out of the path just past the mirabelle trees. One false step and hours and hours of plant sowing and pricking out and potting on would have tumbled down the hill.

So erring on the cautious side I plodded.   The pictures don’t look that impressive. There really are hundreds of the little critters here in the shade of the barn. Honest.

I managed to find the time to pot up all the tuberoses for Leslie’s birthday, and  some for me.   That was quite fun and therapeutic. And a break from the endless watering.   I put about four or five tubers in each pot and then filled in with lovely potting compost.   That ought to make a rather glam 50th birthday present next month.

Then, once I had given all the seedlings yet one more watering, filled the watering cans in the hope that Jean Daniel might help out during the week, I suppressed a sob and shut up the potting shed for the duration.

Well, drama queen or what! But it is hard.

To distract myself I nipped up to the asparagus bed and cut the daily haul. Lovely spears which will do for a few meals in London.

The upper potager is often the poor man of the garden: a bit neglected and a repository of the overflow crops.   But things are looking quite handsome for once.  

I have added all the labels, and now have a long row of peas right against the fence, two rows of broad beans, the asparagus (growing beautifully), two rows of cabbage, one potential row of parsnips (nothing up yet) along with the usual raspberries, two rows of potatoes and the last of the purple sprouting brocolli.   Very productive.

And once I get another big mowing session in, I will be able to mulch well between the rows with the lawn clippings.   I can imagine never getting round to properly hoeing the weeds up here in the next few months. Another out of sight, out of mind area.

But to finish this post here is a shot of the new shade garden. It’s tricky to photograph as everything gets a bit lost in the background,but there’s growth, there’s hope.