I WorkWorkWorkWork...

....work the whole day long...

Isn't that the dwarfs song from Sleeping Beauty?

Well believe it or not, there have actually been enough dry spells in the last ten days for me to get some work done in the garden! A few drenchings too when I had my head down amongst the weeds and didn't notice the growing blackness of the sky, but maybe if I stand in the rain often enough I'll grow.....? Faint chance at this stage!

Firstly I weeded all along the montbretias, front and back, and was a bit disappointed when I realised how much of the growth was weed, not flower! Oooops! However in the last five days they have come along beautifully and are now just about flowering.

The grass and weeds along our verge were almost waist height as the strimmer is banjaxed. I took out the good old 'slasher' and hacked them down to a reasonable size. Its still all weeds, but its tidy weeds- a step in the right direction!!

 The blackberries are flowering ever so late; if we don't have an Indian summer nothing will ripen, but if we do we'll be inundated. Last year's crop was very patchy so we could do with plenty for jam!

 And I detest pulling up thistles even worse than nettles as they always seem to get me. Mind you, I was plenty stung too- anyone would think I was growing a nettle farm here. I lined the thistles up to put on the fire in the hopes of killing off any potential seeds, so alas alack but this fella is no more!

It doesn't look much does it, but the growth this summer has been something else with the wet and warm temperatures. I've done a fair bit of work around the patio and the beds along the walls but you can't really tell.

Oh well, I know everything is a bit tidier!!

Progress? I Think...

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week I was busy out of the house, or, when I was at home, I worked in the garden.

To the uneducated eye this stretch of gravel may look very dull, but I assure you that many hours of hard weeding went into making it look this boring!

Next on the agenda is dealing with the two veg beds, which, as you can see need quite a lot of attention. I harvested a bucket of onions and garlic from the right hand one, but its since gone over to dock. And the left one is just a Triffid Nightmare. The rhubarb is happy but the Brown Wind ruined the raspberries, and the rest is just things gone to seed and running rampant. Its keeping me awake at night with its Rave music...

In the greenhouse (cupboard!) I sowed a few seeds in the hopes of having a last hurrah before the winter sets in. We very often have mild weather until the end of October, and some years it has even been mid-November before we've needed the heating, so with a bit of luck we'll get something out of this batch.

I sowed mangetout, borage, mullein (an investment against next spring) also cress and winter salad. The cress, peas and winter salad are sprouting, the others are still thinking about it. Also, indoors, I sowed Evening Primrose, which is germinating madly, so that's exciting! Oh, and spring onions... (As usual I got my seeds from Seedaholic.)

I found some cabbage seedlings around the side of the house, so I put them up on the shelf to see whether they would recover. Also, the apple pips I planted last summer sprouted, to my surprise, so I separated and re potted them. I don't know whether they will ever do much, but its worth keeping them going to see what happens. Oh, and I shook out some seeds from a foxglove on the lane and sowed them to see whether they would germinate (VERY clearly LABELLED!!).

I pulled the rapidly multiplying montbretia out of the salad bed, and intend taking them in to the Churchyard and planting them there next week. For the moment they are in water with some compost tea added to hopefully keep them happy. They'll be drunk as skunks by Monday.

And so to the salad bed... minus the aforementioned montbretia, and all the chard which had gone to seed. Parsley, ditto, mustard, ditto ditto. I pulled up reams of strawberry runners which were holding a Berry Olympic around the edges of the bed...in fact there were so many strawberry runners that there was no room for weeds, which was kinda handy I suppose.

I've planted a few of the perpetual spinach at the far end, as usual I forgot to water them so they were a bit sulky. I'm waiting to see whether they turn up their toes or kick up their heels.

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about growing strawberries. For a start, although home grown berries are delicious, there are never very many per plant, and you'd need to put down about 40 or 50 plants to be worth eating. And secondly, take your eye off them for a fortnight and they either keel over and die or they run rampant and strangle everything within reach. Or perhaps its just my slap-happy approach to gardening which is at fault, rather than the strawbs!

And just to finish, Heinz has learned a new trick which is either funny or annoying, depending. If you ignore him when he wants to play, he goes gets Bear (present from Eldest), brings it to you, and if you still ignore him he somehow flips it up at you to get your attention! Yesterday everyone was out for several hours so I was working on the laptop and Bear kept hitting me, and occasionally landing on the keyboard!

So there it is. Getting out into the Garden is a step, right?

And the Hub bought me hiking boots so now I need to brave the wider world...well, step outside the gate at any rate...