Putting the garden to rights

We arrived home from our visit to friends on Monday and unloaded the plants I’d bought on our nursery tour. There were – a lot of plants. I wanted to plant them all this week, but the weather’s playing jokes. From cold and dry in April to wet and mild in May to warm and dry for the last couple of days. The weeds and the grass have grown fast.

Stuff No Mow May. We have what used to be a field behind our house, grass dotted with mature trees, and when the grass grows too long it’s a ten day job with a scythe or strimmer to cut it down to manageable levels. I know what I’m talking about. We left it once for five weeks and it took us almost a month of working every evening and six hours a day at weekends to get it into shape again. We leave the edges and an area at the top corner to go wild, and we planted a hedge of native trees and shrubs to provide food and shelter for wildlife. Let us have our short grass in the middle.

So today he mowed the lawn, cutting down the forget me nots and daisies and ribwort plantain, while I ripped up the weeds that had taken over the veg plot. Having done that, I could plant the carrot seedlings I’d sown in modules last month and the leeks and marigolds I bought. The bean frames are set up and waiting; the aubretia is settled in the wall at the front of the house, there are geraniums in pots at the door. The thyme and parsley were put into the herb patch, the dianthus in a pot and a huge devil’s ivy is looming over the bath indoors. We’ve been busy, and there is more yet to do. Starting again tomorrow with yet more weeding, and planting some beans by the frames.

With all that work to be done outside, and the weather finally looking like late May’s weather should, I was daft to take up a challenge to enter a short story competition by 15 June. Still, my hands are still feeling the effects of ripping up nettles, brambles and sneaky weeds that grow close to the thorny stems of the roses, so the idea of sitting back for an hour or two and writing does sound good.