Chipped

I was out on Saturday until late afternoon (a work 'away day'), leaving Liz to crack on with the huge pile of branches that needed chipping. I got home at about half-four to discover that she had put almost the entire, multi-cubic metre stack through the shredder, leaving us with a wire cage of mulch.

Impressed? I was.

While she finished off, I humbly assisted by bringing over the last branches, and cut the too-thick branches into logs or kindling ready to stack and dry. In finishing the chipping, she also uncovered three old pallets that I'd put down first, which is a bonus: building the compost bins last weekend nearly used up all my pallets in reclamation.

Today, I've started to mow the lawn for the first time this year. Not all of it; I got bored, frankly, and there were other things to do. I've done the entire middle lawn, though, which is important. The last mow of 2010 was only a half-done job, and then the weather turned and I never finished: I have a feeling it was 1st September. Anyway: the middle lawn thus hasn't been cut since August last year, and was badly in need. It's now been shorn, and looks better—though it may suffer a little in the short-term. The rest of the lawn is easier to do, and isn't as thick, so I hope to knock that off one evening this coming week.

So; these 'other things'. We've tidied the shed! By which I mean, emptied it, removed several bin-bags of rubbish, removed the things that belonged elsewhere (primarily the workshop and the garage), size-sorted the pots (more of those than I thought, and certainly not short of them), and 're-packed' the contents. With sufficient efficiency, I should say, to enable me to put the chipper, lawnmower, and garden vacuum in there—all of which were previously cluttering the workshop. This is much better, and everything's considerably better arranged.

We then pottered in the space assigned to the future greenhouse and shed. Measuring up, I think we have space for a 6' x 18' greenhouse (not a standard size, but common enough), and either a 6' x 15' shed, or an 8' x 10'. The current (rotting) shed is the latter size, but the site is a trapezium, so there are two options for filling it. I have an eye on possible sources for both, but we need to figure out the cost (especially of the foundation!), and make a plan. It may be that we get the shed this year (to remove the rotting eye-sore, which is impeding my view of the daffodils, which are starting to bloom (a few dozen are out), and preventing easy planning of the herb garden that will probably replace it), but leave the greenhouse 'til the spring sales of 2012.

Speaking of daffodils: enough are now out that Liz has been able to pick a few vases' worth. It looks as though this is a couple of weeks earlier than last year. It's also almost exactly a year since we ordered the wood for the raised beds, and I'm planning to order some more this week, to construct the fleece/netting cages for the vegetable beds and a second strawberry bed (an extended version of the rhubarb bed we planned but didn't build). Also this week, we'll receive another 6m³ of topsoil, to finish filling the vegetable beds, and hold in reserve for later things. The potatoes are chitting nicely, so things are coming together well.