Day 2 of the hundred day project

Well the weather is not playing ball with the one hundred day project.  It is snowy and rainy and slushy and cold and there is not one single thing I would want to do in the garden even if I was not feeling sore throated and sore chested and sorry for myself.

And we are not talking crisp white stunning beauty snow.

It does not look like this.  We are talking mush and slush and grey and rain on top of snow and a deep desire to hibernate or live in the South of France.  It is April.  It is Easter, no more snow for heaven's sake.

So I have decided that making a list of things to do in the garden will have to be my task for today.  Now this could be a mammoth list which really could only be followed by moving to the south of France.  There is so much to do out there that a counsel of perfection or even a counsel of mediocrity could produce pages and pages.  I have decided that what I need is a list of no more than five things, of which two must be really quite small, the kind of things that can be done in less than half an hour.  So here goes:

Finish mulching the side garden.  That is not the work of a moment.  We don't do loads of mulching here.  There is just way too much and we don't make enough compost for the whole garden and anyway I like to try and grow things that want to be up here and don't need too much coddling.  But the side garden is both the closest to the house and the poorest soil in the garden and a bit of tlc produces a big difference.  I am not going to be doing that this week though.

Cut back the wormwood.  This is a quick and easy one.  It looks so tatty right now but it will regrow and it looks way better for a fierce haircut.  I don't know whether this is best time of year for it but experience tells me that it doesn't seem to matter that much when I cut it.  It fills out and grows back pretty much regardless.

Clean out the wooden greenhouse.  This is a bigger one.  I might have to ask for some help with this.  It only happens once a year but it makes such a difference.  At the moment the area under the workbench is full of plastic pots, way more than we would ever need if we lived several lifetimes.  Does anybody know the best thing to do with plastic pots?  It doesn't look as though our council takes them in plastic recycling.  And I am not yet sure whether my sense that the cold has killed off my scented leaf geraniums is right.  The top growth looks dead.  There is plenty of firmness in the stems.  They need to be given a bit of time to show whether they have survived or not. 

Clean out the metal greenhouse.  Ditto.  Bigger, dirtier, uglier, definitely needs to be shared.

Weed the herb bed.  That shouldn't take too long and would let the dry soil herbs have a bit of breathing space.

Maybe thing to do with the big jobs is to break them down into tiny bits.  Really tiny bits.  But even that,not today.  Today is a day for staying by the stove, knitting, reading and blowing my nose.  The garden will still be there tomorrow.