Prepping the beds

A break in the monsoon rains gave me the opportunity to finally sort out my veg beds. I've managed to grow a nice crop of dandelions! After an hour or so of weeding the beds with a garden fork, I also whizzed round the rest of the garden which gave me a big blister on my right palm from using the hand trowel. I managed to fill two big bags of garden waste, luckily there is a collection scheduled next week (thankfully Hackney takes this stuff off your hands).



Since the sunshine continued I also cleared out my compost bin and the scrappy heap of all-sorts (a mixture of woody clippings, old bits of timber boards, a pallet, guinea pig litter, ...). Injury number two was a nail that protruded from a board I moved and which I managed to drive into my thumb (left hand this time).

The compost from the bin itself was not a great success: compostable bags obviously need much longer to disintegrate and I had to pull them out from the usable stuff. Messy business. In future I won't put them in anymore, not worth the bother. The scrap heap yielded quite a bit of compost at the bottom of it, thanks to the guinea pig litter. It now is a bit tidier too but it could do with removing completely, however I am not sure how I can dispose of it.

I had enough muck to spread onto the veg patches and dig it in. It's still a bit to horrible to plant anything out, even the lettuce, beetroot and carrots would find it a bit too chilly at the moment. Better to wait for a couple of weeks and hope the weather improves. Can't wait till the planting starts!

Time is marching on, garden isn't much

Things have moved on quite a bit and most of the seedlings are doing well, even though they were forgotten for a while after transplanting.


The greenhouse has proved its worth, only one loss - a cucumber seedling bit the dust. I have just sown three more so should end up with enough in the end.


The winter squash is coming along nicely, and so it should because the slugs will be at it as soon as it goes into the ground.


I have finally outlined some beds and then realised that I don't really have enough space to grow everything comfortably. I readjusted the original plan and now beans will share a bed with the winter squash. Everything will be "cozy" - not ideal but best I can do. Even as I was doing the beds two cats hung around, staking out their favourite pooing place. Need to get some more bamboo kebab sticks to secure the ground against furry marauders. Made some teepees for the beans and cucumbers to climb on and now it feels ready for planting. By now I should have planted the beetroot and rocket but just not enough time recently to do that. Hoping to do that this long weekend.

Step 3: the great transplant action

Yesterday I managed to grab a couple of hours to shift the plants from the new vegetable side to the dedicated flower side. I am very pleased with the area where the irises are now situated, mixed in with a few sedums. To the right of them I put the acanthus and bergenia - keeping my fingers crossed that they re-establish themselves.


I also found quite a few surprises, some plants of unknown origin and species. They look interesting so I plonked them in and I'll see what happens. I also found lots more bulbs, violets and bagfuls of creeping comfrey. A hebe and an oleander joined the bushes at the back of the border. There is a lilac tree that I am tempted to move closer to the deck, replacing a dogwood shrub but I am not sure about that yet.


It was supposed to be raining today but in fact it was nice and sunny so I had to get the garden hose out to give them a good watering. After all these changes I might actually have enough space for all my vegetables. Now I only need to improve the soil and start sowing...