Pile of Soil

A day working from home, for two-fold reasons: first, it lets me get on with administrative stuff that it's best to concentrate on; second, it let me schedule a delivery of top-soil on a weekday, and oversee its delivery. Not, you understand, because I'm a control freak, and wouldn't trust anyone else to set out the tarpaulin and make sure it's dumped in the right place, oh no.

Anyway: administrative work was accomplished, and the ever-obliging Tommy Topsoil arrived with another 6m³ of topsoil. The last lot arrived at the end of April last year, though it took us until August to move it all. I'm hoping, this time, to finish topping up the vegetable beds over the weekend, and we might then plant out the potatoes and onions. The seed potatoes arrived at the start of the month, and have been happily chitting away since: they're mostly coming on well. The first onion sets arrived in February, but the heat-treated sets are only just arriving: 200 New Fen Globe arrived today, and the 100 Hyred are on their way.

Earlier this week, 240m² of 30gsm horticultural fleece arrived, which is going to insulate the vegetable beds. I've also got an order for wood 1x1" stakes to construct a cage system to support the fleece, which should arrive on Saturday, along with timber to construct a second strawberry bed, and add horizontal framework to the raspberry cages (which will allow me to run horizontal wires along each bed to support the canes). With the fleece, I'm hoping the onions and potatoes will get off to a quick start: the soil's warming nicely, helped by a week of good weather.

The icing on the cake that is a day working from home was being able to nip out at lunch for a mooch: the puschkinia are out (and look lovely), and there's a blue tint to the bank from the squills. The daffodils are coming in to their own, with more and more out. So far, they're mostly yellows, but there are a few with orange corona and yellow perianth, and a few pale ones. Still, it's the cheerful yellow I love most, so that's fine. I'm very fond of puschkinia, too: they look white from a distance, but the blue striped racemes are elegant close-up.

The colour time-bombs are coming good.