After weeks of relentless sogginess in Central Scotland (and a range of temporary water features in the garden and paddock here at The Sparrowholding!!), at last the weather seems to have taken a turn for the better in the first part of this week. Over the weekend, I had tackled the three unwieldy bushes which were all but blocking the garden path, reducing them by around 50% in volume and giving them a short back and sides. I suspect I was not cut out for a career as a hairdresser, as their coiffures look fairly frightening!
Then on Monday, Son&Heir was minded to get some fresh air and sunshine, so he kindly tackled both the front and back patio areas of the garden. He edged the lawn along the path, removed all the dead leaves from the borders, plus scraped the grass and mud off the paving stones. And what a difference he’s made!
FatCat inspects the work, having sat and done absolutely zilch all the time Son&Heir was slogging…
Half-way stage: plants chopped, but still a lot of detritus lying around.
All spruced up – suddenly it’s beginning to feel as if spring might be just round the corner 🙂
Getting stuck in with the secateurs… The back patio as it looked “before”…
Another inspection by FatCat – the back patio apparently passes muster!
Meanwhile down in the polytunnel…
So much for the patios… However, just 20 metres away, in the polytunnel, there’s still a LOT of work to be done… HunterGatherer is out in the fields seven days a week at the moment, and Yours Truly has been making her way (wo)manfully through mountains of proofreading, so we’ve rather left the poor polytunnel to its own devices over the winter.
To save having to water them during the frosty spells, HG dragged most of the Tublyx tubs (of which he’s built up quite a collection!) containing herbs out of the polytunnel way back in November. As soon as we can get some time, the plan is to fill half the polytunnel with them (and get some seedlings planted) while keeping the other half free for a couple of lambing pens. Although lambing is about a month away (unless Ivan the Terrible sneaked out of the field when we weren’t looking one night!!!), we hope to get the pens set up this coming weekend. I can hardly believe it’s over eleven months since the last wee woolly bundles bounced into the world – scary how quickly the last year has flown. (Eek! Now I’m beginning to sound like my mother…)
A sorry sight at the moment, but once HG gets all the soil sampling and spreader/sprayer testing completed, this will be his first port of call!
The Tublyx tubs have been hibernating outside (to avoid us having to water them in the frost!).
Last year, first-time mum Lily was only too happy to shelter in her polytunnel pen when it was blowing a hoolie outside!
