19th February 2004

In the beginning...

This is what I came to early one half term morning. After a couple of months of being left alone it was looking badly in need of attention. (Mr S. agreed with me on this one. This is his front door view!) The dead plants had to be taken out to the compost heap, the living plants had to be either cut back or moved and the soil had to be dug over so it could settle down a bit before planting.

Persistent Poppies

The garden, as I saw last time, was not waiting around for the school garden club to do something. Remember those huge poppies from last year? Well, they're back (as you can see by these new seedlings to the right) and will no doubt want to take over the garden again. They are weeds in the vegetable garden though, and any poppy seedlings growing there would be dug in to the soil to be made into compost.

The Nasturtiums are Waiting...

Not all of the seeds from last year have started to grow. Hidden amongst the soil, you can see lots of Nasturtium seeds (can you see them? They are brown and spherical. Sometimes they are covered in a whitish covering), which will wait until the weather is a bit warmer before they germinate and start to grow. I am sure that Mr. S. is looking forward to the day when they poke their first leaves through the soil!

Worm Hotel

As digging got under way, I was very pleased at the number of worms I found in the soil. I almost felt guilty as I thought I was digging up a holiday resort for worms - Costa del School Garden, perhaps? Without the Costa of course. Or the sun. Or the Spanishy bits. But you know what I mean.

A large number of worms in the soil means that the soil has got a lot of organic matter in, and the worms help to feed and dig the garden too. A sure sign of a healthy soil.

Half Way

Wow. Was I only half way so far? It was time for a break. As you can see, most of the plants were taken out. The Honesty, Spinach and a couple of other transplanted bits and bobs were left. Although a bit wet, the soil was nice to dig, as it didn't clog together, but also it didn't fall apart too easily either.

Time for a cuppa I think!

Mini Daffodils

During my break, I wandered around the garden to have a look at what was happening around it. A lot of the trees were thinking about spring. You could see that their buds were beginning to swell, ready to burst into green when the warmer weather came. A number of new seedlings were appearing all around the garden. The bulbs, the champions of early spring-time, were making themselves known everywhere. These miniature daffodils were very eye-catching, even if they were hiding away in a corner of the garden.

A Hedgehog's Home

It may look like a pile of branches and twigs, and indeed you would be correct, but underneath we are hoping that a hedgehog is hibernating. Hedgehogs are great, as they love eating slugs and other insects that love eating our plants. So this hedgehog is very welcome in our garden as it is a natural way of controlling plant pests. Warning - don't set fire to piles of wood and branches unless you are absolutely sure their is nothing hibernating underneath!

The Finished Garden

Et fin. The soil is dug, the plants have been tidied up and some of them have been moved. The honesty near the path was moved over about half a metre, as the path may be re-laid sometime this year. I was careful to dig them out with a lot of soil attached to the roots, so that their roots wouldn't be disturbed too much and they wouldn't feel so shocked at being moved. Some Lemon Balm that grew well last year in plugs but never was planted out was planted in a pot. Tis should hopefully stop it from spreading everywhere.

Time for another cuppa and a good sit-down I think!

Hippo Climbing

Having stayed away from the garden whilst I dug it over and changed it around, the Garden Mini-Hippo came back at the end to climb up onto his tree stump and survey the work that had been done. So what did he think of all the work that had been done? As far as I could tell he was pleased. However, Mini-Garden Hippos are not known for getting too excited about things, so he just stood on his stump and stared at the dug soil and moved plants, no doubt planning what he will do this year. He was still there as I left to go home...