The Soft Egg

Hello,

I know it’s Spring because all of a sudden I don’t know which way is up. Both regular work and The English Gardener have been crazy busy which is great, but tiring. But I managed to accumulate a good few photos of what I’ve been up to.

I finally managed to finish a raised vegetable garden I’ve been constructing that was on hold due to the snow .

I am really pleased with how it came out and even made a few modifications to it that I wished I’d done on my own original beds.

I got the soil mix from Panorama Paydirt. Excellent stuff. I got it just after it had rained though and I was warned that it would be wet and sticky. Truer words were never spoken. It almost killed me shoveling that stuff. But the end result is an instant bed, ready to go.

Spring has finally arrived, as I said, and my garden is looking really good. Not through anything I’ve done I might add, but through the shear numbers of spring blooming plants that all were doing their thing at once.

This pic shows how well that magnolias have done this year. They got a light zap from the frost the other night but they held on to their flowers under the top most parts and have looked great for days. Usually we get two or three days worth and then they are toast! You can just make out the brown ones right at the top in this next photo.

Plants seem to be coming back from the snow damage ok, if a little misshapen. My Acer that I was so peeved about, is actually sprouting new leaves and I think I might just keep it and see what happens this year. If it comes into full leaf and looks totally stupid I’ll see if I can transplant it. But not until winter, I don’t want to kill it outright!

So, this weekend we actually put our hands in our pockets and shelled out for some mulch. We did it about 3 years ago and really just haven’t got round to it the last couple of years. I like mulch, but I kind of think it’s a bit like “garden wallpaper”, you can cover up a multitude of sins with it. The new bed we created the year before last though, was crying out for something and, as that side of the property had the old cemetery on it, (Yes, they did move the bodies as well as the head stones, Carrie Anne!)  a lot of gravel and junk kept rising to the surface,no matter what we did, hence the mulch. Double shredded hardwood from Snows. I’m happy with it. I don’t want to go too heavy with it though as I’ve experienced fungus problems with many mulches, and that weird dog -vomit slime mold thing I mentioned last year, will appear in the next few weeks.

Another good thing to do whilst you’re doing the mulching is to re-edge the beds to retain said mulch! Good edges make a lawn/ bed margin so much tidier and are pretty easy to maintain once you’ve done it a couple of times. First, get a half moon edger and cut STRAIGHT DOWN. Flip the sod onto the bed and knock it into crumbles if you can. Repeat until completed. Ta da. “English Edges” I believe they are called over here. To maintain them, purchase a pair of edging shears (Amazon.com) and snip the grass back or, do what the landscape crews do here, and flip your string trimmer or “Strimmer” on edge and slice the grass away. Either works. I prefer the gentler, English way, but that because I’m English, see. I get the “help” to do mine nowadays….

A busy weekend by all really. ” Fig” helped a bit.

And the chickens earned their keep…

That’s my grubby hand holding the creepy, soft, lightly frosted, egg of legend. I’m not sure why this happens. I think it might the second egg from one of the girls and so the calcium in her system is depleted.  Weird.

It got chucked in the hedge, needless to say!

Cheerio for now.

Sarah