Yes, tomorrow is the vernal equinox — the day and the night are equal lengths, spring starts and summer is certainly on its way.
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last wrote a post, but trips abroad and visits from work colleagues from other countries have meant I’ve been pushed to the limit. Thankfully, I had booked a few days off, so this last weekend saw me having a nice long weekend, from Friday to Tuesday inclusive.
I’ve been getting a bit behind with the stuff I wanted to do in the garden, so the few days off gave me the perfect opportunity to get on with that; best of all the weather played nicely too!
On Friday I spent the morning cleaning out the greenhouse. It had been badly neglected, to be honest, and large amount of some ground covering plant had taken over most of the floor of the place. Brambles had grown in from the back, forcing their way through the frame and the bench was falling apart. After giving the floor a good clean, I created some extra shelves underneath the bench, giving space to put the numerous pots we’d collected over the year.
On Saturday I collected some old wood from my parents’ house and began to turn my veg patch into a raised, covered bed. I cut some old, 3m floor joists in two and planted them as posts around the patch and joined them at floor level with some floor boards. It was a careful operation as my garlic is already planted and growing happily in the bed. The plan is to buy some netting that will keep both chickens and cabbage white butterflies off the veg, but time and lack of finding a netting supplier has meant that has to wait.
The second patch that hasn’t yet been used needed some tender loving care. I spent a good hour giving myself a work out digging around and hacking out some old tree stumps from the edge of the bed and digging in some compost from our over-flowing compost bins. I didn’t get time to build the raised bed frame around the patch, but maybe next weekend I will get the time.
Daisy removed some rampant brambles from a very neglected flower bed on the edge of our lawn. This bed seems to have sprouted some wild garlic from out of nowhere, so it will be interesting to see how edible it is!
I have to say, that this long weekend was one of the most enjoyable I’ve had in a while; I really loved being out in the sun making the garden (slightly more) tidy. It’s back to the office tomorrow, oh well.
