It was lovely and sunny this morning, although it didn’t last, and I felt the need for some time in the garden to enhance my sanity levels.
I went out with a fairly low-key agenda: potting on my new herbs and sowing some scorzonera seeds (having bought fresh supplies of potting compost earlier in the week).
After doing those I felt the urge to make some progress with the garden redesign – towards next year’s larger focus on perennials. Since altering the Grow Dome bed in June I have had 12 spare concrete blocks kicking around, ear-marked for a new bed. Having cleared the space where I thought it would go, I summoned Husband for a consult and he came up with a better suggestion. The result is that I Have used 6 of the blocks to make a low herb bed extension to one of the existing beds:
As you can see, it’s not level. The garden slopes there and although I could have made it level I have left it sloping by design – the idea being that the lower end will be wetter (for herbs that like wet feet) than the higher end.
My two dwarf buddlejas are temporarily holding down the black plastic that will prevent cats from crapping in the bed until it’s filled and planted up – the new bed is directly over one of their favourite toilet spots.
I have enough blocks left over to do the same to the next bed up – which will be more level! Those blocks are deceptively heavy, though, so that’s a job for another day. I did (finally) manage to pull up some of the Welsh onions that have been causing a problem for years at the front of the raised bed. One of them was home to a red ants’ nest, which made Princess Layer very happy as she loves ant eggs. Chewbucka and Cluck Skywalker were happier with the regular supplies of snails and slugs I kept fishing out of nooks and crannies for them.
The weather got steadily more grim as I was outside, and after a couple of hours decided it was going to rain properly, but by that time I was worn out and finishing up anyway, so it didn’t matter.