Gardening...

What a glorious weekend, Happy St Patrick's Day to one and all.

It's gardening time now, time to be digging and raking and weeding. Planting seeds in trays ready to plant out in a few weeks time. Cutting grass too, where once we cut grass up until the end of September, now it seems to go on almost all year round, when it's dry enough.....

I went off a couple of weeks ago and got a trailor load of dung from a local stud farm to dig into all my vegetable plots to give them some growing goodness, but, unfortunately, it is too fresh to use so I have to wait until it rots down and that probably means next year. So what will my poor veggies do this year? I shall have to look for some rotted stuff, somewhere.

I am going to plant, leeks, courgettes, peas, beans, onions, swiss chard, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, peppers and maybe squash. We have tried a few things over the years and have had to rule out certain plants that either don't grow very well for us or that we end up not eating or we don't have room for in the garden.

Can't wait til' we have our own veggies for meals again, tho' we still have a few leeks left in the garden and the onions only ran out a couple of weeks ago, so that isn't too bad.

Busy week

Well, Ireland won the rugby, in a not so easy match against the Italians. Scotland, unfortunately, did not.

I have had a very busy week. It started on Monday... as weeks usually do... I can't remember what I was doing... oh yes, we borrowed a power washer and in fact, it was Sunday I started to wash around the house. All the tarmac had grown moss and it looked .. still looks, in parts, a complete disgrace. So, Monday was day 2 and I managed to get down the drive before running out of steam (me) and hose (the washer). It took me six hours to get that far and three the previous day. The postman commented..."you're an all rounder, aren't you " I wasn't sure if he was being rude . I have lost three stone in weight in the last couple of years. It turned out he wasn't as he told me that seeing me had inspired him to get his own washer out of the shed .. only to find that it was broken. He has now got it mended !
Anyway by the end of six hours, non stop... I was jaded so I took a hot bath to ease me muscles and flopped in front of the stove (woodburner) I haven't finished the tarmac yet.....

The next day I organised myself to get a load of manure (horse) (for the garden) at a farm a few miles away. I had to borrow a trailer. (the first time I had pulled one)
I had physiotherapy first for my neck problem at the local hospital 12 miles away, then went for lunch at a friends house.
Later in the afternoon I drove to the farm where they loaded the trailer with a huge helping of manure. The tyres were so squashed I wasn't sure I'd get home. I did. Then I had to fork all the manure into the wheelbarrow and barrow it to the veggie beds. About 20 barrow loads. Then clean out the trailer with the hose and a brush.
I worked with special needs adults all day Wednesday doing screen printing and stayed in bed til' 10 am this morning.
I have just made a huge pot of veggie soup and two loaves of soda bread and now am going to light the stove and relax.