It’s been a steady plod this week, through wind and rain. Its easy to feel like you’re not making much headway sometimes, especially when you’re just doing an hour here and there whenever you can squeeze it in. But in fact it’s when you just keep slowly chipping away, that things start to come together. 65 bags of compost, manure and wood chip (almost- just a few more to go) have been carried by hand a bag at a time into the field. And I’ve begun spreading it nice and thickly onto the cardboard layers covering one half of the patch.
We managed to salvage and reuse some old chicken wire fencing and now the first 10 metre by 6 metre section of the field is rabbit proof.
I need to collect more cardboard this week to cover the second half of the patch and get that finished and then hopefully by the beginning of April I can start getting it filled with plants.
The patch will consist of 4 beds 1.5 metre by 3.75 metre and 2 beds 1 metre by 3.75 metre. With 75 cm paths of wood chip all round and a wider 1 metre path down the centre so I can get a wheel barrow through.
- Bed 1 will contain annuals for drying
- Bed 2 a row of sweet peas and annuals for using fresh.
- Bed 3 will be mainly for dahlias and sunflowers
- Bed 4 is a mix of perennials.
- The two narrower beds will have roses, hydrangeas and pittosporums underplanted with geraniums and primula candelabra.
In between the busy week I had the most beautiful delivery of flowers from B J Richard’s in sunny Cornwall and made up a few very special Mother’s Day bouquets- full of parrot tulips, sweet Williams, little white narcissi and hellebores. My own daffodils won’t be long now!
Have a lovely week and keep chipping away towards your goals!
Rebecca xx