Irrigation

Having got the taps ready, today we installed the irrigation system for the two patios (kitchen and dining room), and the front garden. The colour wheel is simply a hose leading to a bar sprinkler. We didn't have time to do the herb garden, other than to lay the supply hose. The 4mm branches, and associated sprinklers/sprays will have to wait. The other big achievement was to finally repair the leak in the dining room hot water pipe, by doing the bypass I explained yesterday. This seems to have worked, and now means that the leaking pipe is no longer used, and the route hot water takes through the house is much shorter, which should also make it hotter. As a side benefit, the pipe we've taken out of the circuit also appears to be the one that was making the water mucky, as it's now running clear. The repair might have taken six months to solve, but we're finally there, and with a much better set-up.

Paths

Today started with a soft-fruit picking session. The raspberries are nearly over: probably one, maybe two more pickings left. However, the gooseberries are really just starting: the fuzziest, first variety at the top of the bed, Invicta (which also seems to have bigger fruit) is mostly ready, and some of the red and golden Hinnonmaki are there, too. While I prickled myself collecting these, and then a bowl full of blackcurrants, Liz collected about 80% of the redcurrants. The whitecurrants are always a bit later, and some of the red weren't ready yet...but it's still a lot of fruit. The bushes have now properly hit their stride, in their fifth year (we planted them in December 2009), although one of the blackcurrants isn't doing nearly as well as the other two. That's a shame, as blackcurrants are my favourite (compared to red/white/pink...I don't know how I'd choose a soft fruit, let alone a fruit, as a favourite), but there you go. I'm hoping that a couple of year's good mulching and pruning might see it straight. Alternatively, it may not be getting as much irrigation, as it's at the top of its bed (which is, literally, the highest point of the kitchen garden, and furthest from the watering system inlet).

A few clumps of ragwort have been growing in the orchard, and while certainly not an infestation (there's a nearby field which is just a mess of ragwort—and, worryingly, is a horse paddock), I wanted to remove it before it sets seed. When we bought the land, there was, comparatively, quite a lot, which a year of strimming and pulling has mostly resolved. Anyway; I pulled up what I found, and checked in on the graftlings, which all seem to be doing ok.

When I'd done so, Liz had weeded beech bench bed, and the bed to either side, and had also put down cardboard mulch sheets around the beech. That was a prerequisite for spreading chippings around the beech, which will now have much less competition for light, water, and soil, and look a lot tidier. I moved the turf stacked in front of them, and the spoil heap of stones (including a couple of large lumps of concrete, and several stones worthy of walling or pond-side). Between us, we've laid out weed-membrane, and covered it with chippings, to form a path down that side of the lawn. During the winter, when we're bringing wood up from the wood shelter, that path quickly gets muddy, so this should be a better route, now.

This was really part of a larger chipping-spreading activity, as we've put a path (membrane and chippings) through the middle of the herb garden. It's not planted, apart from the lavender lines crossing it, and having the lined path will mean a bit less weeding. The un-dug part of the potager, which has had weed membrane down on it for some time, has now also had a layer of chippings, which makes it look much more attractive than black membrane.

Putting this path down meant moving four box that were an edge in the old design, but are no longer, as the edges have moved, and aren't going to be box any more. The four plants have moved into the long border, replacing clumps of alchemilla, and will gradually form balls.

Lastly, I've had to add more strings to the legume supports, as they finally, slowly, start to grow. They went out too late, really, delayed by the work on the back of the house, so it's not going to be a productive pea and bean year, sadly.

York Gate

David and Ann were with us for the weekend, and having dropped them off at the station, we carried on to visit York Gate Garden, which is on the outskirts of Leeds. It's on a similar scale to our own garden, and is pleasingly divided into a number of smaller gardens, which is the kind of approach we're trying to take. It had a pretty pond, a nut walk, and a productive kitchen garden.

York Gate Gardens (© Ian 2013)

And, inevitably, a small nursery. We picked up three alpine Lady's Mantles  (Alchemilla conjuncta), which is more delicate than A. mollis, with leaves that are more divided, and silver edged. It is, apparently, less prone to seeding everywhere, and is better behaved.

Having got home, we pottered in the garden, including a contemplative look at the games lawn: Liz is floating the possibility of cutting an oval flower bed in its centre, and making the surrounding beds that bit bigger. Doing so would prevent badminton (but the combination of warm, dry and still weather necessary for a reasonable game is extremely rare), and formal croquet; but modified croquet, boules, lawn darts, and similar would all be possible. And it would make more space for plants, and probably look more attractive.

I also hooked up some new watering equipment, which arrived last week: a timer computer, which can set water going up to eight times each day, and an automatic distributor from Gardena. The latter's rather clever: each time the water comes on, it sends it out the next outlet of six, in sequence. By connecting each irrigation zone to a different outlet, and using the computer to turn the water on (and off) the same number of times, each zone will be watered. It will mean I only have to turn the water on/off once, instead of five or so times, in an evening, and the kitchen garden (and green roof) will be watered. It will also mean that the watering can be done while we're away, without laboriously inconveniencing a neighbour.

Netting

Our visit to Tatton Park was bracketed by days at home, which we mostly spent outside, of course. Saturday was dominated by going over the hillside with the brushcutter, cutting the grass, and removing or weakening as much of the brambles, gorse, rush-grass, and ragwort as possible. It's hot and hard work, but the hillside is definitely showing improvement. This time last year, it would have been tricky to get to the two 'best' apple trees, and barely possible to get to the other three or so—and impossible to reach the track up into the middle levels or hill-top.

Now, the orchard is easy to walk around, and the main clearing of the middle level is accessible. The bracken there, which I've now cut down three times, is still coming up, but not strongly. By comparison, the bracken on the other side of the wall, and further along the hill, where I've not done anything, is six feet tall, and impenetrable.

I have to confess that we saw a rather fine summer house at Tatton Park, one of the Malvern Collection. It's a few years off, yet, though, but it was very nice, and would be a lovely, secluded hideaway on the hillside.

Enough of that. Otherwise, on Saturday, I checked that the newly installed sprinkler on the woodstore's green roof is working, and established that my beer is ready for barrelling. The chardonnay I started at the same time, incidentally, is in the cellar clearing, and is probably ready for bottling. The dandelion is slowly clearing, having finished its vigorous fermentation; the elderflower is on a warm windowsill, bubbling furiously.

Monday was more varied, although we had to contend with showers. The butterfly netting is now up, covering the two plantings of brassicas (which replaced the alliums in the Q-bed, and the early potatoes up one arm of the C-bed). The sprouts, kale, cauliflowers, purple sprouting, and swedes have all settled in fine, and the rows of 'Golden Ball' turnips we sowed at the same time have germinated well.

We discovered a pot of leeks, which hadn't been planted out, so we filled a few gaps in the rows of leeks where tiny seedlings hadn't transplanted (only about three of thirty, and those three were properly tiny), and put the rest in spaces among the autumn onions. The earliest of these, Early Fen, looks like it's nearly ready. On a similar note, the garlics (Germidour) and summer onions (Radar), which are drying in the wood shelter, are coming along nicely.

We've found that we've been losing a lot of courgettes before they get to a sensible size, rotting from one end. On investigation, I think it's where the flower has started to rot, and this has spread into the fruit. To combat this, I'm going to try to remove the flower as soon as it's gone over, and let the fruit swell. Jenny & Philip are away, so we're also picking their fruit and veg (and sweet peas!), which means we're inundated with courgettes.

The hanging baskets, which we tried with dangling nasturtiums for the first time, are looking splendid: I must get a photo of the front of the house. I'm trying to remember to regularly feed them: strangely, the two on the front of the house proper (rather than on the porch extension) are doing less well, though they get more light (marginally).

Once that, and some weeding, was all done, we spent a little while clearing some spaces for our flower show purchases, before going in for lunch. This afternoon I've spent preparing David and Anne's wedding present: but more on that after their wedding...

Hot

It's been a very hot week, and it's looking like it'll continue until at least next weekend, so we've had to take the step of watering the fruit trees on the hillside. Established trees probably wouldn't need it after a single hot week, but, of course, these are in their first year after planting, and their root systems won't be very extensive or established. Fortunately, I had a spare 50m hose in the garage, which, combined with the normal reel, was enough to get to all the trees (though not the sweet chestnut and willow bed in the clearing, although they're more sheltered and cool), and it didn't take too long, in the end.

Otherwise, we've done some tidying and sorting: split and stacked some wood, Liz has tidied the driveway up, I've painted some window frames, and we potted up some vegetables and weeded.

The first of the sweet peas have flowered, and are now nicely scenting the house.

Tidied Verge

We managed to get a couple of little jobs done this evening, in glorious weather. Liz weeded the gaps in the weed-suppressant membranes around the fruit trees (the slit where we fitted the membrane around the trunk, inevitably, gets some weeds growing), while I folded down the top of the chicken-wire cages that protect the plum trees. These are already at about the right height to start training in permanent laterals, but a couple of these have been damaged by rubbing against the cage: hence folding it down out of the way. That still leaves about 150cm of cage height to protect against deer.

Then Sigrid and I cut back the grass (and docks, nettles, and weeds) along the verge outside the house and hillside, which has needed doing for a while. I've delayed because the daffodil foliage is only just about gone—there's still some, which I tried to avoid. It's startling that there's still some showing in early July, but it's an obvious consequence of the delayed flowering. The verge now looks a lot better, which is good, because it was starting to irritate me, and some of it was making visibility poor when pulling out of the driveway.

It looks as though one of the blackcurrants has lost a lot of its fruit, which is a great shame. I fear it may be a lack of watering (it's never felt dry enough to need to irrigate the fruit, but I might have been mistaken): alternatives are a potash shortage, a pest (no idea what), or a cold spell shortly after fruit set (I don't remember one). So, I gave the fruit beds a good water, and I'll spread some food, as they're the two possible causes that I can affect.

Bonfire

Earlier this year, we cleared a lot of gorse from the hillside, and have added—during our subsequent clearing and trench digging efforts—brambles, hawthorn and gorse to the heaps. We decided it'd had long enough drying, and the conditions were about right, to burn. It turned into an all-day job, as it burnt better than expected, meaning that we spent the day feeding the bonfire, but it means that it's all done, rather than taking several efforts.

In the nettle-y corner up from the house, I set a small fire (few sheets of newspaper, four bits of kindling and, pleasingly, a single match & firelighter!), and started feeding dry gorse into it. That burnt well, and so as Liz brought over dry material from the various heaps we'd accumulated, I cut the branches from the other hawthorns we wanted to remove, and we burnt them, too. Even though it was wet, it burnt well once there was a good, hot bed of charcoal.

As I say, that took all day, in the end, and we've spent today mostly on the hillside, too. Breaking it into several sections, I've used Sigrid to brushcut almost the entire orchard, clearing grass, gorse, brambles, thistles and ragwort. Liz cleared up behind me, thus replacing a lot of the heaps we burnt only yesterday. So it goes.

Fortunately, the hillside now looks immeasurably better.

In between brushcutting, we got a few jobs done in the garden-proper. All the brassicas have been moved up a pot size (purple sprouting, romanesco cauliflowers, January King cabbages, kale, sprouts), to grow on before being planted out after alliums or potatoes come out. We sorted out the irrigation system in the fruit beds, which had been disturbed when we mulched them in the spring. Lastly, we've sown some more lettuce/salad leaves, and resown Swiss Chard in the barrel (previous sowing was a no-show).

Coming Into Leaf

The weather's been kind for the long weekend, meaning we've been able to get out all three days. Saturday and Sunday morning were both spent sawing, splitting, and stacking firewood, which isn't particularly noteworthy.

We spent a lot of time weeding the top bank, which is now looking immeasurably better: there are going to be dozens of foxgloves, soon, and hopefully the whole bank will look good. We planted a couple of dozen white cosmos ('Purity') that we've grown from seed, too.

I weeded around the Japanese quince while Liz began this weeding, pulling out about three trugs full of nettles and goosegrass. To start with, I cut the tips off the nettles, and started a batch of nettle cordial, using these, later in the day.

In the kitchen garden, I've overhauled the irrigation system, which is now ready to use once more (if we get warm, dry weather for any length of time!). The green roof is now well into germination, and seedlings abound. Today we planted out the five courgette plants, each under a plastic cloche. None of the curcubits we planted last year came to anything at all, so we're both hoping for a better crop this year.

The front garden received a lot of attention this morning, and we took out several trugs of weeds and rubbish from the paving, planted wall, and beds. The ivy needs cutting back (and the Virginia creeper needs more support wires, and the hanging basket that fell of that wall needs re-hanging), but they'll wait for another day. We need to replace a few things in the wall, where the plants have been overgrown by grass: possibly some dianthus we have growing from seed.

Most pleasingly, we uncovered loads of little hellebore seedlings under the acer, which I've carefully transplanted, so we now have forty tiny hellebores in a module tray. Of course, they'll take about three years to flower, but there you go.

While in the front garden, I lifted the slab in front of the gate, which was rather sunken, and have lifted it by a couple of inches: it's now level with the paving, and less of a step down from the lane.

We also went up onto the hillside. The deer/rabbit damaged stems of the Scot's pines are now all pruned out, and I've sprayed all the pines with animal repellent. A few of the fruit trees have had second ties added, further up the stem, to stop them rubbing. All the trees have now, finally, come into leaf (the walnuts are lagging slightly, but are on the way). James Grieve is in flower, as is the 'Spring Glow' plum. Only one of our established (anonymous) apples is in bloom (one next door, in Peter and Sara's plot, is), but almost all the others are in bud. Just one doesn't appear to be, yet.

As has been reported elsewhere, the cold winter and late spring means that there's a lot of blossom, so we're hopeful of a bumper crop from the established trees, and maybe a few fruits from the new plants.

I cut down several of the hawthorns that were between the apples: it's looking as though we'll be able to find space for up to another ten trees, once the hawthorns, blackthorn, and scrub is fully cleared, so we're making a start on removing this, so we can get a proper picture of the space available. I'm going to try to get out with Sigrid to clear some of the bracken and brambles this coming week, as we have visitors at the weekend, who will want to look 

Lastly: the dandelion wine, which I finished on Thursday, is now sat, bubbling away beautifully. I'm hoping to start a batch of beer, and maybe some nettle wine, in the next week or so.

Mud

We've been spending almost all of the last seven days digging. The hillside, we discovered, is far wetter than expected, and needs serious drainage in order to be sure that our fruit trees will thrive. With some interruptions (a visit to my parents' on Monday; snow on Wednesday; things like that), we've been working on digging the necessary drainage trenches, and the planting pits for the trees.

Needless to say, this has been non-trivial. We're almost there, now, and just have another half-dozen pits (and whatever trenches are required for them!) to go.

It's been a muddy, hard, squelching job, and I shall be very glad when it's done. At the moment, the hillside doesn't look like much, with bamboo canes marking the future position of trees, and then only muddy ditches, wet spoil heaps, and muddy tracks where the grass has broken down under foot.

Watering

Having (finally) had some warm weather, we had to water the pots tonight, and the fruit and vegetables. We took the irrigation system's sprinklers off last autumn (expecting a winter where there was snowfall and freezing temperatures!), so first I've had to reattach them. I only did the vegetable garden's, as the fruit ones are a bit more involved, and the bushes are less susceptible to drying out, as they have better established roots. The extension to the irrigation system, to cover the rhubarb and second strawberry bed, still needs completing, which is on the to-do list. The currants, gooseberries, and raspberries are all looking really good, and we'll hopefully have a large crop of them all. The fruit trees, old and new, are all now in leaf, and some of them are flowering. The quince, plums and cherries aren't, yet, but they're a bit later. They've all been watered, too, as trees need a bit of extra help in their first year.

Reindeer

Every year around now, the garden centre has a visit from the reindeer herd on the Cairngorms. We visited them when we were in Aviemore in 2004, and now try to go to the reindeer parade when they visit Huddersfield.

Reindeer from the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd (© Ian 2011)

That was yesterday: today, we installed the irrigation system in the 'new' strawberry/rhubarb bed that we finished in August. We then planted it with strawberries, at a wider spacing than in the old bed: about 1' between plants, in rows 2' apart; equal numbers of Honeoye, Cambridge Favourite, and Florence. We also (belatedly) cleared the foliage and debris in the old bed, prompted by the fact that a deer has been climbing in and grazing. No, really. Droppings were found in the bed.

That's now tidied, and hopefully the new strawberry plants will settle in quickly. The rhubarb should arrive any day, so it's good to have the bed ready. Irrigation for the rhubarb won't be sprinklers (like elsewhere), but drippers adjacent to each crown. Rhubarb's badly designed, as the leaves deflect rain (or sprinkled water) away from the crowns—which actually need quite a lot of moisture. Hence, drippers. No rush, though: there's not much chance of them dehydrating over the winter.

The compost bin is now pretty much over-flowing, so I need to get round to turning them soon.

Rain

It rained a bit, over the weekend, and that's continued today. The wind's also picked up, which—combined with the rain, I think—meant that the rectangular vegetable bed's fleece cover had half blown off the frame this morning. It was still attached on the eyes/nails on the path-side, but in being lifted off had started to tear quite badly at the corners. So, I removed it completely. This evening, the other covers were also tearing, and because it's damp, I can't really make any repairs (tape won't stick to wet fleece)—so they've all come in.

It's a couple of weeks earlier than we were planning to take the covers down—we can get frosts until the end of May. However, we probably won't put them back on this spring, as the weather's been quite warm, and is looking set to stay that way. If a frost does threaten, the runner beans will need covering, and—if it's severe—the celeriac and beetroot, but otherwise I think the soil's now warmed enough not to need the covers.

They've been a rather mixed success, the fleece cages. They've taken a lot of time to put in, and maintain. On the other hand, I think they've helped get things going, and—without a greenhouse—we would have struggled to grow enough plants on to fill the beds in May/June. The wood/wire construction will be useful, in the long run, for netting (especially brassicas and beans) and for fixing the irrigation system's water jets, so that's certainly no waste. I'm not sure, though, whether we'll continue using the fleece once we have a greenhouse.

Once I'd collected the covers, I spent a while weeding the onions, which are doing well, but were accompanied by rather too many nettles, goosegrass, and clover. It's looking much better now.

Comparing Notes

We got back this afternoon from a pleasant weekend spent with Hazel and Alex in Cambridge. As is custom, we spent the time eating, gardening/walking, and playing board games. Hazel is an excellent cook, and produced a lovely slow cooked pork belly from a National Trust book we don't—yet—have. That may need to change. We'd taken a bottle of my elderflower wine, which went down very well—apparently, it's quite like a semi-sweet Reisling.

On Saturday, we walked over to their allotment, which has come on again since we last visited: they've basically finished the raised beds (about 3m x 0.8m), and installed a 5m x 5m fruit cage with a load of bushes. Gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants; and a jostaberry, Japanese wineberry, and a kiwi. The jostaberry is, essentially, a gooseberry/blackcurrant cross; wineberry is a type of raspberry; the kiwi needs no introduction. I shall be intrigued to try the first two, and to gauge their success with a kiwi—needless to say, I doubt we could grow one up here. The vines need decent summer warmth, and are vulnerable to early frosts: we have an insufficiency of the former, and a predilection to the latter.

Their potatoes are, I might say, behind ours: conversely, their runner beans are ahead. They grew over-wintering onions (Senshyu), so they're looking bigger than ours—no surprise, as they've been in since August 2010. However, Japanese onions don't store as well, and we've sown a year's worth, so we'll be well placed once ours are harvested. The strawberries are doing better, benefiting from the higher temperatures in East Anglia. Everything, though, is a bit dry: they've had no significant rain since the end of March.

It was, as normal, a pleasure to see them; and always interesting to see how someone else's garden's getting on!

Preparing the Last Vegetable Bed

We've now emptied the last (rectangular) vegetable bed, having removed the crocosmia, an errant iris, and the stooled willow. Next, we added about fifteen barrows of topsoil (I lost count, but it was about that many), to bring the level up, having spread out the manure we'd left at one end. I then drove the wooden posts into the edges, and strung wire between these to form the support for the fleece cover; then we attached the water nozzles to the posts, and connected them to the irrigation supply line. We then put fleece over the cage, punched holes in its border, and set the reinforcing eyelets in the holes, before nailing in the respective hooks (into the outside of the bed). Finally, we put reinforcing tape on the fleece where it goes over the posts, to minimize the risk of splits.

And then we collapsed on to the sofa.

Emptying a Bed

Yesterday's birthday went really well: the party (a few party games, followed by a picnic) went smoothly, presents were well received, and the cake worked a treat. We found take to—once again—water the garden, and we also bottled the elderflower wine that I started last year, and racked at Christmas. I have to say, it's delightful. Excellent bouquet, nice and clear, and vinous taste: a very credible dry white.

Today, I've mown the lawn, and we've started emptying the rectangular vegetable bed. To start, we took up two large clumps of geranium from the rectangular vegetable bed, and divided them into about a dozen pieces. These, along with a couple of woody shrubs whose name escapes me, have moved into the copse. While I was planted these, Liz took the shears to the kitchen garden's paths, which were getting a bit jungle-y: they look much better now, and easier to navigate. I really must get round to ordering weed suppressant membrane to line the paths: we can then distribute some of the chippings along them, which will keep maintenance down.

Watering as Entertainment

We started the day by testing the new irrigation system: a thorough success. Much more so than the fruit beds: I think the 180º jets are better than the 360º version, and having them raised by a foot seems to improve them further.

The painted Easter eggs from yesterday were then dispersed around the garden, in small-child-friendly hiding places. Judging spots that would keep two- to seven-year-olds interested is a little outside my experience, but it seemed to work well: the children (and my parents-, grandmother- and sister-in-law) came round after breakfast and were suitably entertained. Later on, for reasons I can't really explain, the children decided that they wanted to help water our garden. This being a slightly mundane and tedious job, I was happy to oblige...and while I worked from one end of the pots with the hose, they ran back and forth with watering cans. All the while, it appears, loving every minute.

Who knew childcare was as simple as giving them a watering can?

It's the middle one's birthday tomorrow, and Liz and I have been tasked with hosting the 'party', and making a birthday cake. It's a fairy ring, with small doll surrounded by toadstools, cunningly crafted from miniature muffins, chocolate rolls, and chocolate coated marshmallows. Hopefully she will like it...

Eggs

Following on from yesterday's main-line installation, today we put the supply line and spray nozzles in the vegetable bed. These are 8mm tubes ending with mini-jets that spray water over 180°, out to about a metre. The nozzles are a foot above soil level, attached to the wooden posts that support the fleece covers. We didn't gave a chance to test the system, unfortunately, as we had other things to get done...

As tomorrow is Easter Sunday, we've made the three foster children chocolate eggs (18cm jobs, half white, half milk, with 'Happy Easter' piped onto one side: they look surprisingly good), and visited them to help paint hard-boiled eggs. We're going to hide nine of them in our garden tomorrow morning, and they'll come down after breakfast to hunt for them.

Jenny's harvested her rhubarb (which seems notably earlier than mine—though mine, admittedly, languishes in a pot), which made for an excellent dessert, but has also provided me with a big bag of rhubarb leaves. I've chopped these up, and put them in a bucket of water in the shed: once they've steeped/stewed/leached, the resulting liquid is rich in oxalic acid (the reason one shouldn't eat rhubarb leaves), and can be sprayed as an (organic) insecticide. Given the sawflies on the gooseberries, this couldn't come soon enough.

Finally, I had twenty minutes spare, so I've poured the cider (finally—it's taken forever to finish fermenting) into a barrel, and added a couple of ounces of sugar: in a week or so, it should have settled and be suitably fizzy.

Irrigation

We've spent this afternoon starting to install an irrigation system in the vegetable beds. Last June, we put one into the fruit beds, which works fairly well: it's been so warm and dry that we decided it was time to add one to the rest of the kitchen garden.

Accordingly, we've put in two 13mm supply hoses, one running down the rectangular bed and around the edge of the C-bed; one running around the Q-bed. Doesn't sound like a lot of work, put like that. Each loop can be connected individually to the main hose (I think it'll only be one at a time, as the pressure's probably insufficient to cope with more than one loop), and will feed a number of spray nozzles—that's tomorrow's work.

While we were working on that, we also earthed up the potatoes, almost all of which are coming up fast. In theory, we might start harvesting the Rocket in three weeks.

New Cooker

The new range cooker arrived today! It is a thing of beauty, even though it's standing in the dining room. When the kitchen's rebuilt/reinstalled in late July, it'll get moved, obviously, but is safely out of harm's way in the mean time. We got (predictably) a rather good price, and I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

The weather's been rather warm, so we've been putting the new irrigation system to use. Seems to be doing the trick...

Weekend to Plan

I'm as astounded as anyone: the weekend went, pretty much, to plan. Yesterday we installed the irrigation system. It's about 30 360º sprinklers, and four 90º sprinklers (in the strawberry bed). Not quite perfect, as a few strawberries are being missed, and some of the potatoes/onions aren't being reached, but the permanent fruit bushes are all covered. This week is now forecast to be rather wet, so it won't actually be put properly to the test for a while, but it's good that it's in. I also laid a hose down the side of the garden (hidden behind the shrubs/trees/undergrowth at the edge) from which to water by hand, or attach the irrigation. When I have time, and possibly in stages, I'll install the new outside tap and move the existing tap.

We've also prepared for the double glazing installation, which starts tomorrow. All the windowsills have been cleared, and furniture moved from in front of the windows (including some pots from outside the windows). I'm really hoping it'll go smoothly, but we're not going to be present while they get on, so I'm a bit nervous...

(Oh, and to boot: I mowed the lawn on Thursday!)