Thursday

 We had a lot of rain overnight here in Peterborough and it was still raining at 10:00am.  Not that we mind the rain it was just not dry enough to go out in the garden and set about trying to reclaim it again.  Therefore we took a leisurely morning pottering around with other things that needed doing and then descended into the garden at 2:00pm.  Have been in the garden ever since now 7:40pm.

G has had another go at the Buddleia and has still not managed to get all of it down.  Another huge chunk of it has gone though and been sawn down into small pieces ready to go to the tip.  We now have twice the pile of weeds, trees, brambles and various other wild things which are being allowed to wilt down a bit before going into bin liners also to go to the tip.  Saturday  It was changed to Friday is destined as a big day for the tip this week and that will just be dealing with what is in the front garden.  Updated: This is now all done for this time round.

On the plus side, one of my small greenhouses is now up and my plants inside. It is on slabs, as I already had some to use.  However the slabs have just been loosely placed just to get me through. I can now get cracking with my seeds a bit.  Some transplanting will go on tomorrow together with more work in the garden.  Greenhouse has gone up quicker than I had hoped for, not quite how I want it but usable until can get things in better order.  It is however up and running.  Yay.  Hopefully water barrel will also be up and running soon.  We have had this particular water barrel for many years, but it never had a base.  I bought a base a few years ago, but never got the two together.  Am going to place this down by the greenhouse so that I can water up easily.  Garden is a terrible mess, but it will once the brambles etc are removed look a lot better.  Then it will be digging time.  A lot of work to do this year to get it ready for action next year.  On the plus side my apple trees do have a few apples on them.

Thanks to advice from Gill, the Rhubarb plants are for the present staying where they are.  They will be moved in Spring next year, which should fit in nicely with some plans I have to make a Perennial garden down near the Greenhouse.  Thinking of buying in another couple of Rhubarb plants this time a redder version and planting them down by the greenhouse.  Also have plans to put in a couple of rows of Asparagus as well.  Before that though I do have a lot of digging to do once all the Brambles are removed.  Thought would do it the old fashioned way, and then get cardboard down to stop as much as possible anymore weeds. Some time will be spent in the greenhouse this weekend getting seeds sown and plants sorted out into their final positions.  I also have some plans to grow from seeds some plants which although will not be ready this year, will be in time for next year.  Things such as Lavender.  I also intend to buy some long term Herbs in and take cuttings to grown new plants from them.

If we get all this done, and it is an if, will then according to G have a go at the bottom part of the garden.  It used to be a very healthy and productive fruit garden.  We had planted three trees down there, two were in memory of his Aunt Edie, two apples, cannot remember the names; and one was supposed to be a dwarf cherry called Stella a black cherry and it used to produce over 40lb in weight of cherries per year.  We believe our neighbour complained about the tree to the Landlord's Agent, without talking to us directly about it.  The next we came home to find that the Cherry tree had been "pruned".  They had lopped all; the branches off so it never produced cherries again.  It killed the tree and was in such a dreadful state.  Our neighbour is in his 80's and has nothing better to do these days than to criticise and complain.  He does the same about the neighbours on the other side of him as well.  My opinion therefore is that they can cut the tree down to get rid of it as they bodged it up.  However a lot of birds use the remains of the tree and I would not like to see them homeless.  Will see how we get on in that respect.

Overall quite a bit of stuff achieved again today.  However, more tidying stuff away and re-storing it.  We found a lot of plant pots under the Brambles that had been blown off the racking we have them in.  I am going to need them in any event so a good washing given to many of them and then they were re-stacked.  I was outside working until about 7:40pm as I had no idea of the time.

Came in and had Ham and OH had chips and a fried egg for his tea.  I was not particularly hungry.

Needless to say we have more than our fill of work to do.  Weather forecast seems good for tomorrow.  We will wait and see though as it has a habit of changing rapidly!

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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