Saturday and sunshine. The two appear to have been incompatible for what seems forever.

A relatively dry week has allowed me to spend two or three hours pottering in the garden this morning. I have missed being able to get out amongst the plants what with wet weekends or a wet week making it impossible to garden.

I’ve taken the netting of the broad beans today, they are now standing about a foot high and should be strong enough to deal with the threat of hungry sparrows etc.

A general hoe and weed around the vacant beds and I’ve dug some of the more mature green manure crop in to let it break down before we start planting in Spring. Sue has just put the first punnets of early lettuce and rocket into our little hot house to germinate.

The leeks and parsnips I dug today are superb, although this years crop of celeriac is a disappointment. They are not putting on any size at all. May be down to the fact we used old seed from the previous year. You should always start your garden with fresh seed.

We get nearly all our seed from the Gippsland Seed Company in Victoria. We place one order a year usually in early June, this years order was approx. $100 AUD and will give us all our fresh vegetables from the garden for the next 12 months.

We took our old galvanized water tank to the recycling center after lunch, maybe someone with a bit of DIY skill can turn it into something useful. Despite Sue’s encouragement there was no way I was going to attempt what she suggested I do with it. (No not that !!!)

A brisk walk after that and it looks like the sun has gone for the day. Despite hints of spring there is still another good month of winter to come, so let’s not get coerced into any major garden works to early.

Hedges in the front garden need trimming, typical they’re in flower so I’m banned from touching them yet. A couple of mature shrubs look like they’ve had a bit of a touch up from some of the severe frosts of the past two weeks. Hopefully they’ll recover.

I wonder what blood type they are, maybe I could feed them all beneficial food