Constantly playing catch-up…

One thing we’re rapidly learning is just how difficult it is to squeeze in garden redesign projects alongside all the general maintenance we need to do. What sounds like a fairly simple project consistently turns into something much longer than we’d anticipated – which means we invariably miss the ‘right’ time for planting.  

The spring bulb border was the first project to delay our plans – we started planting in late September/early October but two weeks turned into three months, and we didn’t finish until early December, meaning the final bulbs were late going into the ground.  

This delay meant we were late in starting our next project – replacing a long mess of brambles with a new raised bed to move our inherited cultivated blackberry plant to, and use the remaining space to grow vegetables. We had a deadline to move the blackberry plant as it was growing against our third barn, right where the foundation trial pits were being dug. We managed to get the bed ready enough to move the blackberry plant before the diggers came, but the rest of it is still unfinished. In Autumn we’d bought some over-wintering onions to plant there, but they didn’t end up going in until the end of January, rather than the November/ December recommended on the label – we’re hoping they may just be ready late, but who knows! The bed still isn’t completely ready – we’re creating a cold frame section with some unwanted windows from a renovation in the village, but they need more TLC than we’d expected. In the meantime we have a huge pile of soil waiting to be dug back into the bed. 

The next project lined up is to replace the temporary soil bank at the other end of the orchard with a similar raised bed, keeping it to grow squashes and potatoes (photos below). According to the packet, the potatoes should be in the ground April/May – so we have our date to work towards. But – we can’t start this until we finish the previous project because there’s nowhere else to move the soil to while we build the bed, except where the soil is from the first one.  

Squeezing in amongst all this, we’ve still not finished the winter pruning of the fruit trees (we got halfway before we were thwarted by bad weather) – and we’ve just managed to finish their potash feed this week (due early Feb). The calcium feed is due late Feb, and we also need to clean the greenhouse ready for seed planting at some point. And we still have a pile of wood to chop up from the pruning for firewood.

It’s hard to stay motivated at times with so many outstanding things to do and time running out. We’re doing what we can in the evenings – our lounge has become a makeshift workshop this week trying to get the windows sanded and repaired; and our new lantern-torch has helped us catch up with seed planting. We’re constantly reminding each other as well that once most of these projects are done, we won’t need to repeat them for another 10+ years… we’re definitely looking forward to longer summer days and more daylight hours!