Signs of Life - What a Great Feeling

Made one of our regular family trips to Wakehurst Place on Sunday (if you haven't been, great place, Kew's place in Sussex - really good value, great walks and wonderful trees, plus some wonderful Himalayan planting). It was such a relief to see the first signs of life after nearly four depressing weeks of everything being under a heavy blanket of snow - yes I know it looked wornderful and the kids love it but it does limit what you can do in the garden!

So, look out for some real progress by next week, meanwhile, a couple of pictures filled with optimism!

Underway At Last

Christmas festivities behind us, school governor duties accomplished, time to get going! Started the clearing of the first plot today - first up was to remove some old stumps that had been left as a decorative feature or something for the animals to play with in their enclosure (yes, the pub previously had a small menagerie - not something we felt was practical or appropriate).



Next task was to get rid of the animal shelter - in surprisingly good condition apart from where the wood met the ground and had rotted.



That only really left half an hour for digging - but, the frozen top made it very easy to remove. A quick session with the mattock made great progress.



The old animal bedding seen at the back should make for good organic matter to dig in. Got the seed catalogues come through - seems like just in time - had to go to the supermarket this evening and the place had been wiped out - threat of a little snow and the whole town has started to panic buy - not a carrot to be had! What are we like? Hopefully, if we don't get too much, I'll be back on Thursday finishing off the clearing and covering with black polythene to warm the ground up and counter this Siberian front which we've now been promised/threatened, could last until the end of February!