Another Sunday, another day in the garden, what more could I want. As usual when I came home from ringing I went out into the garden to check on everything in the greenhouses and gave them a little water. I need to do more pricking out and tidying in the greenhouses, but the outside needs my attention first. The Easter weekend I am planning on spending as much of it as possible in the garden so hopefully I will be able to get everything up to date then. I decided I would work Good Friday, but have the Monday off, the perks of being self employed you can decide. Mark is away from Friday to late Sunday, and Easter is very low key for us at home, so we’ll have a special meal on the Monday when we’re all together again.

The first job for today was to weed. The large beds have little Sycamore seedlings growing all over them, our neighbours have a tree and the little helicopters (that’s what my sister and I used to call the seed pods) flutter down into my garden. It’s not a problem, but you just have to remove them sooner rather than later.

The first bed was where the potatoes, parsnips and a row of garlic is growing. Once weeded, I watered the parsnips and the garlic and then moved on to the next bed.

Apart from a little bit of weeding I dug up the remainder of last years Spring Onions. They’re quite chunky, but grew really well. I’ll use them over the next couple of days and hopefully this years one’s I’ll sow next weekend. Once this bed was all weeded and tidy it was time to call Mark and Kai so we could move the brassica cage from the bed behind. Emily bless her was unable to help as she had her appendix removed only a few days before and isn’t allowed to lift anything heavy for 6-8 weeks apparently, so a heavy brassica cage was out of the question. But with two strong men and me (who is stronger than both of them put together) we moved it with ease.

Because I was out in the garden the chickens were complaining feeling that if I was out playing in the garden why weren’t they. Once the brassica cage was in place and hoped I had secured all the gaps, I let them out to play in the brassica cage in the sun so they could have a scratch and a dust bath.

We were having lunch inside when Emily suddenly said “Is there supposed to be a chickenon the fruit bed?” To which I answered “Um, no!” Cheeky little buggers had scratched enough soil away and a few of them had snuck out of the brassica cage and into the garden. One was in the fruit patch and another couple were wandering around the garden. After picking them up and putting them back where they were supposed to be, I sorted out the little gap they’d created and went back inside to finish my lunch.

I received some more Asparagus crowns from Suttons which I’ll put in next weekend. The variety I got was “Officinalis Mondeo” Only reason I chose this variety was because once we had a red Ford Mondeo Estate car and it was a gorgeous car, very long, so finding a parking space large enough was interesting, but so comfortable to drive, oh and the acceleration…wow! Turbo diesel injection!! I’m not a speed demon but it was fast. As I was unable to plant these today or this coming week as I’m so busy, I’ve laid them in moist compost.

Once it was time for me to go in, I let the chickens out of their brassica cage and they followed me back to their shed and run as I was carrying a pot of corn and mealworms. Victoria lets the children go and stays back as she wants a little grown up time with me. We sat on the grass and I gave her her own little pot of corn and mealworms and then we had a little cuddle before it was time for her to go in. She loves her mummy cuddles and a little bit of time away from the noisy children.

Here’s to a busy week, but afterwards a long weekend!

Take care everyone xx