Right - catch-up time...
Slightly later edit: [bemused] you can almost see the veg growing. Since this morning the sweetcorn flower tassels are now just peeking out of the top of the plants, and I'm having to pick mange tout twice a day, as the pods that are too small in the morning are the right size by the evening. We have the first marrow developing now, as well, and enough tomatoes for the first batch for the freezer! (There'll be a cucumber ready for picking in a few days too...)
I lubs my gardin...
It really looks as though Ken will be able to finish remortaring the wall this summer! This has been a major job, spread over 15 years - 100 ft long and well over 6 ft high in places, and the work can only be done when it's dry and sunny, as otherwise the mortar doesn't dry properly (and can crack) or is washed out by rain.
This is the current section: last year's repair is on the far right, the section he's scraped out, removing the old ashy mortar, ivy roots, weed roots and other junk, ready to select the stones to be mortared back in (we have piles of them, rocks that fell out as the mortar gradually decayed over the years before we bought the place) is in the centre, while on the left you can see the part he hasn't tackled yet. The top of the wall is always the most difficult, as it means standing at the top of a step-ladder (which itself is standing on soil - never terribly stable). BUT it's nearly done now.
Then we plan to change the veg bed a little, cutting off the awkward rounded corner and extending outwards by a few feet in the direction of the house. This will give me more growing space and also leave room for Kai's proposed additional railway track down the fence side of the patch (if we can ever afford it...) This will mean moving the stones that are acting as a retaining wall and rebuilding it along the new perimeter, but we'll have plenty of sand and cement left, so Ken's suggested mortaring the rocks, making it stronger and more permanent (and no longer a refuge for slugs!) So that's the project for the autumn.
Of course, there are a couple of other household projects suggested last year that I had forgotten about: painting the front door and jamb, and the back door and jamb, and the inside of the lounge windowsills, which are in a terrible state. All of this requires fine weather and lugging the paint home from Wilkinson's, so I need to start working out schedules.
So much for thinking I'd finished after doing the bathroom!
<- The sweetcorn is still doing well, but the actual end results are still a bit of a moot point. Keeping fingers crossed for plenty of sun in August. And a bit of rain in the meantime! Though you have to admire how sweetcorn has evolved: the leaves funnel water directly down to the base of the plant, as I saw while watering last night. Very efficient!
So far so good for the apple tree. We have a couple of dozen apples developing nicely, although I'm still checking for pests and keeping it well-watered. They're not ripe yet! ->
<- watermelon and Galia melon ->
Unfortunately it looks as though I might only have one watermelon: all the tiny fruits have died off. I assume that's because it really needs much more space to grow. Eh well. Maybe when I get the coldframe...
On TV: the fourth season of The IT Crowd is now half way through and as far as we're concerned so far it's the best yet! Season three was lacking, but four is insanely surreal (or surrealy insane). Great stuff.
Otherwise there's not much on at the moment: everything we were following - Flashforward, V, CSI - has finished. We're watching the first season of Warehouse 13 again, in preparation for season two (which I'm hoping will be shown on a channel we get, unlike TrueBlood season two, dammit), and picking up on all the little things we missed first time around, which is fun. And the new season of CSI: Miami starts next Tuesday - will probably catch that. (The CSIs aren't 'must watches', but they are fun and a way for me to sit down for an hour instead of charging around getting stuff done!)
My last Lovefilm rental was Parasomnia. I was quite looking forward to it, but it was a major disappointment. Shades of The Cell, which is a much better film. Pity, but you never know 'til you've watched it.
Right, I think that's everything pretty much up to date. Rosa's fresh coir substrate is drying out on the table behind me: we can repot her soon. I've repotted my variegated ficus and pruned off one branch (seeing if I can get it to root), which it much needed. Kai's summer holidays start on the 23rd of this month: we don't have much planned, since the German school trip in October is taking priority, but there are a few things we'd like to do. Will see how it goes.
Back to the garden. At the moment we're trying to clear the ivy from the meadowsweet patch...
Labels: busyness, films, garden, greenhouse, TV
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 2:37 pm
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