Last Post of January

Today is 31st January -Jen's 24th Birthday - Happy Birthday Jen - and co-incidentally,  my daughter Niamh's 4th birthday too.
Anyway, today was quite a nice day, cold but sunny and I got quite a bit done today that the weather has been delaying.
I started by emptying my knapsack sprayer, washing it out thoroughly and then refilling with Vitax Winter Wash

This was then sprayed onto the fruit trees n the garden - 2 x Cherry, 8 x Pear, 11 x Apple and 4 x Plum. I also gave the currant bushes a spray. The trees were all sprayed with winter wash last year and it did make a difference to their health, so hopefully they will continue to improve again this year.

After this, I returned to the border along the west facing wall. This was home to the veg last year - a permanent use is still to be decided on  but possibly a cutting bed for flowers for the house.

I had started to dig this over but then the soil got too wet and claggy so it was left to dry out. And with it being so mild, it wasn't long before the weeds began to take over. However, today I finished digging it over, pulling the weeds as I went - 2 wheelbarrow loads (including some branches that I removed from the ornamental quince nearest the potting shed). So that's that border done, ready for whatever we decide to plant up in it this year.

There are three Rhubarb Crowns right at the top of this border and I think we are going to try and procure some plastic dustbins to force a couple of these this year, but we'll need to be quick as the buds will be breaking out pretty soon.

After that I thought I'd better weed round the hundreds of daffodil bulbs in the top long border as Once the bulbs are up a bit, the weeds will be impossible to get to, so I spent a couple of hours on my hands and knees extracting a variety of weeds whilst trying not to damage any of the bulb shoots.

And finally I finished the day off by starting to weed and tidy the small borders in front of the house, the plan being to finish this next week and plant out the 30 or so primulas that are currently resident in the greenhouse. So that's about it for this week - I'll finish with a pic of the view from the potting shed, though no real difference from the last one !!

Catch you later....................