Weekend of work

A mixed weekend. We had planned/hoped to get the new fence in and hedge planted but other stuff meant that we couldn't do this. I took the decision at lunchtime on Saturday to heel-in the 250 tree whips rather than risk leaving them for another week in their packaging. The constant rain on Saturday made for a miserable day digging and preparing the 'hedge strip'.

Mixed trees heeled in and our neighbour's Cockerel 

I finally finished the trench digging, bundle separating and careful trench refilling at lunchtime today - yes it took a day to heel-in all the trees! A frustrating job as it is work that shouldn't have been needed...and the 100 Hawthorns are making preparing the Asparagus beds difficult. I had to use a third of the veg bed area as it was already stripped of turf.

100 Hawthorn and 20 Hazel

Preparing the veggie area

Oh well. Better the wasted time than have the trees die.

Ness did very well - getting all the patio pots cleaned with plants pruned, tidied and top-dressed. They all look excellent - can't wait for everything to get growing! She also got 25 tumbling Strawberries planted into a 3-tier planter and 3 tall pots.

I found time to add a second slimline water butt to the greenhouse - it is external and collecting from the other gutter. Talking of water collection - the large butt on the garage half filled with the rain yesterday!

Another water butt!

The other good job was sowing seeds on Saturday evening. I made the second sowing of Cucumber, hopefully this will take as the first hasn't germinated :(  I also sowed the second crop of Sweet Peppers, some sweet peas, Tumbling Tom tomatoes and Giant Russian Sunflowers.