A little late this year.....

Having a blog is a very useful thing, because if you want to know things like when to start planting seeds, you just check in the archives. So I did. Last year, the year of the splendiforous garden, I started planting on 7 March. That would make me VERY LATE this year. In fact, here I was very pleased with myself for amassing some of the mountains of potting soil I will need, and I discovered that by this time last year, I had seedlings all over the house and stacked up in the greenhouse and was in possession of every growbag known to man on 25 March. Hello....it IS 25 March and I have no seedlings, no trays bursting with things to come, no windowsills full of plants and no growbags.

Sigh.

This is not a good start. I am being a slug.

And I hate the slugs which choose to frequent my garden.

However, as of this afternoon, I do have an allotment which has been rotivated and it looks great. Not that I did the rotivation, I hasten to add - the men did that. I provided the lemonade and some verbal encouragement. Because it is big, and because I can't manage the whole thing, I invited my friends to use part of it too, so Margaret (the garden fairy) and her husband Derek, grow loads of things on it, and so does John, an import from Australia who is married to Jo, who is British. Everyone lives in the village, and the men do the hard stuff, but generally we all look after our own sections. Sharing is good. Margaret and Derek have built a big fruit cage, which you can walk in, to keep the birds away. David is great about doing the digging and lifting and fixing when he is here too. He worked on it with his Dad, and he is the one who really wants me to keep the allotment. Mind you, I do love being down there too. It is a very sociable thing, gardening without borders. There are not many fences - you have your patch and you chat. Large patch. Very large patch.

All the compost we took down from my compost heap at home has been well worth the effort. My section is looking wonderful, and the soil is excellent.

I can just TELL how much you wanted to hear that.

I aim to please, people......

So that was where we were this afternoon. After church this morning, I went to Jean's house for lunch and we actually sat out in the garden in the sun to eat. It was lovely. And this gorgeous weather is set to stay for the next while, so tomorrow I will be out in the garden again. I have compost to toss into the bed out of which I managed to lever the great root of the choisya. That would be because I borrowed a spade from Jean. No spade, Linds?? Why yes. Down at the allotment. Of course. My little trowel did not do well vs the giant root. So the brown bin is full (garden waste) and I have piles of stuff to refill it with once it is emptied on Friday. I can't tell you how pleased I am that the fortnightly collection of garden rubbish is back in full swing. Good heavens, I sound just like a boring Old Person who rambles on about sundry Old Person's Interests.

Yep. That would be me. Crochet, gardening, sewing, baking..... oh wait a minute, maybe I really am becoming an Old Person..........

But I do love doing all of those things!