Busy day
Posted: Saturday 27 January, 2007
It has been the loveliest day here - dry, sunny, blue sky, a bit of a breeze. Out of the wind and in the sun, it was quite warm. So we've taken advantage of it and worked all day in the garden - thank goodness the days are still short! Don't know about Dan, but I can feel a few muscles aching already.
We finished cleaning the glass in the greenhouse. We did about half a few weeks ago - one of the panes "exploded" and it's taken us until today to get a replacement. Dan went off to Stirling to get it, and the lawnmower, which has been in for a service, and some bark, lime and bone meal. Anyway, he must have been almost at our road end coming home when...another one shattered! So we still need a pane of glass. The inside of the greenhouse needs cleaned out now - maybe tomorrow.
We then moved on to the soft fruit. Dan moved the blackberry and planted in the wilds of our hedge. It was crowding the blackcurrants and, to be honest, there's any amount of wild blackberries in the autumn. I hoed the bed and Dan pruned the gooseberries and the blackcurrants. Some of the raspberries need tied in but I didn't get to that. We also had our first shot of the pH meter. The fruit bed was pretty OK, but the raspberries will need a little lime, especially when we'll be putting manure on shortly.
Dan cut down the asparagus ferns and I hoed the bed, helped by the hens. then we tidied up the bed with the strawberries, red and white currants. Some of the strawberries had dead flowers on them - with the mild weather we had in autumn, they started to flower in November again.
Then it was a quick tidy round, sweep up and stand back and admire! Soon be time to start planting again in earnest. Now where's my planting plan...
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Comments
Dan
Hey! I was away doing the hunter-gatherer thing (and looking at computers in PC World, but don't tell Rosemary). Mmm, blackberries, don't think we've got any left but we do have loads of gooseberries, might have to defrost some tomorrow.
Wanda
Hi there Rosemary and Dan;
Is it normal for you to be preparing the garden areas this early? We do not even get to plant anything until around the first of June. We are at 4500' here in LaPine, Oregon. It is semi-desert. Lots of Ponderosa Pine Trees and Lodge Pole Pines. We had a large garden last year. My husband; Ray, planted 115 hills of potatoes. Then we had tomatoes, onions, carrots, strawberries and peppers. Our corn, radishes, cucumbers and green beans FROZE!. It is not un-common for it to snow here in July! So, we are going to build a small green house this spring. We are really into to eating as healthy as we can, so we are going back to the way we both were raised(raise and grow your own) That way we KNOW what is in it! Can you take some pictures of your green house and post them????
IT IS A GREAT DAY TO BE ALIVE!!!!!!!!!
Dan
Yes, there's loads to do at this time of year - pruning hedges, apple trees and fruit bushes, lifting the last of the parsnips and leeks, spreading manure on the vegetable beds so it has time to get pulled through the soil by the worms, and plenty more.
The only thing we've planted so far is garlic, which went in late last year, and we've sown some salad and peppers in the greenhouse. These are on a heated pad, since it's below zero at night at the moment.
It must be tough growing at 4500'!
Comments are now closed for this post.
Alastair
Saturday 27 January, 2007 at 9:28pm
Hi new to making a comment, but I've been following just over a month now, love the blog.
Sounds like a day of really hard work (Does it count as a 'we' cleaning the greenhouse if Dan was off in Stirling?) I wish I could have got out today, but I was working, maybe tomorrow. I'm stilling making blackberry crumble from our frozen supply from the hedgerows.