Climbers' Supports

A mixed day off, today: Liz spent a lot of time getting beds weeded, which is tedious but necessary work. I've cut back the ivy and Virginia Creeper on the front of the house (the former was encroaching the dressing room window rather); re-attached the hanging basket bracket that came down over the winter; and repaired the bikes.

On Monday evening, Liz painted the feet of my sweet pea/legume support structures with bituminous paint, to protect them once they're underground, and we painted the above-ground bit with outdoor paint last night. That meant that this afternoon I was able to continue putting the woven willow sides into them, and we've now done two of the four sweet pea wigwams. (It's surprisingly slow work.)

We managed to spend fifteen minutes looking at the hillside. A lot of the hedging isn't doing so well, unfortunately: either deer or slugs, but we're not sure which, or whether it's just taking its time to come into leaf. Much better are the grafts, which appear to be mostly alive, and starting to break into leaf. And a lot of the apples, old and new, are in flower. A couple of the old trees, which bore really well last year, seem very light on flowers. We're not sure whether we've missed them/they're not out yet, or whether they're at risk of biennial bearing, having had such a good crop last year. Only time will tell.