Pond progress

H and I making the rear edge more interesting and natural.

Beans and corn

We need crops that can survive no attention through the Summer. Sweet corn went in at the start of May and dwarf French beans today.

We're back

It has been a long time, and it is a long story but the garden blog is back.

We have a pond now, built in the last week or so. Today I'm doing the traditional compost rotation.

More edging

I'm edging around the garden, doing the edges of greatest need.  The turn today was the one in front of the vegetable garden. I also laid some pavier bricks to make it easier to mow around the edge of the vegetable garden.

H has been keeping me company and made a little enclosure for insects.

Lawn Edging

Before

Digging a trench takes longer but is much the best with this stuff

Then you lay it out

Bang in a nail every 2 or 3 "A"s - if they don't go in I just try at a different angle

Help is useful

Finished

Spring 2013, here we go again.

Finally the Sun comes out and sucks us in to the garden.  Lots of tidying up to do.  No photos of my completely sorting out the steps to the garden but they look an awful lot better.

Harriet was a brilliant help.  Here she is clearing the bottom of the wisteria.

Job done!

My traditional "first day of Spring" job of rotating the compost heap.

Tying this in savaged my forearms but it is now tied in.  You can see the swept terrace here.

The small trampoline has been dismantled and offered to a friend.

Erica surveying the scene.  The bare wall behind had been covered with a honeysuckle but Tamsin attacked it with great vigour.

Allotment Arrangements

The responsibility of the allotment has been weighing on us.  Thomas was seriously considering ditching it but we've come to an a compromise.  The space is too big for two plus three children plus full time working but in time we think in time we'll have more time and can do it justice. So, we now have a strimmer to keep the grassy parts beyond us short and will plant what we can plant, and slowly work our way across. The good news is that the parts that we cultivated last year appear very easy to dig over.

In the last couple of days we dug up the rest of the spuds and stuck in some leeks and onions.

Family at work

H planting onions

Trying to make lots of level beds on our sloping plot