Here we go: Day 26 of the 100 day project!
Day 26 was a busy one. A quick coffee this morning followed by a meeting of the tourism group of which I am a member. I hate the way at such meetings no one ever wants to take notes (me included). Everyone avoids the chairman's eye. There is an uncomfortable silence until somebody gives in and agrees to do it. So this morning I volunteered up front to get it over with. It was a good meeting, covering lots of ground and my writing got messier and messier as I raced to record it. I came out with a banging headache and whizzed straight off to another meeting. We got home about half past four and the thought of engaging with the garden was the very last thing on my mind.
So for half an hour I didn't. I drank a cup of tea. I flipped through a magazine. I thought seriously about not bothering today. But the whole point of the project is to do it when I can. Next week there will be a couple of days when we are away and nothing can be done so all of a sudden I got up, put on my wellies and my fleece and went outside. It was colder than this morning. I thought I would do ten minutes.
Here are the creeping buttercups, busily creeping into the flower beds. I love buttercups in the field but they are the meadow kind, holding their flowers high. These invade the beds and tie themselves into the perennials. This bed was mulched in the autumn and the big advantage of that seems to have been to make them much easier to lift and to disentangle from things that I want to stay.
After ten minutes I had half a bucketful and Ian came out to encourage me to stop. It was pleasing to have done it. I took the weeds to the fire site and on the way back I glanced into the kitchen garden.
There was a huge hole in one of the raised beds. A rabbit was disappearing at speed.
This is not helping.
So for half an hour I didn't. I drank a cup of tea. I flipped through a magazine. I thought seriously about not bothering today. But the whole point of the project is to do it when I can. Next week there will be a couple of days when we are away and nothing can be done so all of a sudden I got up, put on my wellies and my fleece and went outside. It was colder than this morning. I thought I would do ten minutes.
Here are the creeping buttercups, busily creeping into the flower beds. I love buttercups in the field but they are the meadow kind, holding their flowers high. These invade the beds and tie themselves into the perennials. This bed was mulched in the autumn and the big advantage of that seems to have been to make them much easier to lift and to disentangle from things that I want to stay.
After ten minutes I had half a bucketful and Ian came out to encourage me to stop. It was pleasing to have done it. I took the weeds to the fire site and on the way back I glanced into the kitchen garden.
There was a huge hole in one of the raised beds. A rabbit was disappearing at speed.
This is not helping.
Aaaaaagh - I have creeping buttercup and rabbits too at the allotment. Job well done Elizabeth. Easier to get rid of the buttercup than the rabbits.
ReplyDeleteVery true. Still wondering what on earth, or in earth ,to do about the rabbits !
DeleteWell done with the buttercups - I'm fighting that battle too. I have a huge hole in my compost heap and rabbits in the field. Joys of a rural garden!
ReplyDeleteAt least I am not alone but I have yet to find a great solution to the rabbits!
DeleteThose creeping buttercups are creeping into my garden, too. I saw a rabbit a couple of times, but not in the past week or two, so I'm hoping he's moved on. I don't know what to do about keeping them away.
ReplyDeleteThe buttercups are a mixture of attractive in the right place and a real pain in the flower beds!
DeleteI wage a continuous war against creeping buttercup, no rabbits though, just moles and cats... I should try your ten minutes a day thing, it is probably the only way I'll turn my wilderness back in to a garden, assuming the ground ever dries out enough for me to weed effectively!! We'll done for getting out there.
ReplyDeleteI am finding the smallness of my commitment quite attractive although I still haven't worked out what to do today when it is raining, again!
DeleteButtercups are a real trial but as long as I get the crown out the rest of the roots don't matter. Then we come to dandelions! No matter how many I carefully tease up, deadhead when I am busy or put salt on the inaccessible ones more and more seem to appear. Disgruntled gardener disappears into shed but at least I don't have rabbits.
ReplyDeleteWe have dandelions too. I just didn't mention them!
DeleteRabbits are my nightmare, but at least we don't grow veg. How do you cope?!
ReplyDeleteWe have never really had much trouble with rabbits in the past but this year there is no doubt that one is trying to set up home, which presumably means much more than one!
DeleteYep, you could soon have a little family of them. A gun?
Delete