big blog (part two)

Now, where was I?

It ain't half hot, mum (but you won't see me striding through the garden in a pith helmet) so I've been doing a lot of the garden work early and late to avoid the full heat of the sun. Not a good idea to transplant things in hot conditions - that's an evening job and I've offered some shade to the plants for the first couple of days where I could. There's always weeding and tidying to be done in the sheltered areas or what I like to call the woodland glade at the bottom of the garden which has allowed me to get some respite from the heat among the trees. Next door neighbour decided he wanted to tidy up his garden which meant removing a couple of small trees and seriously cutting back a lot of shrubbery. Out came the chainsaw and I get to put all the smaller branches through my shredder for mulch and compost material. He wanted to borrow the chainsaw and do it himself but he's the sort of chap who doesn't look very comfortable with a hammer or screwdriver in his hand so I thought a chainsaw might have been tempting fate. I wouldn't really want a legless neighbour, in the literal sense!!

Made a start on my bean hedge with runner bean seeds kindly donated by UK Veg Gardeners member, Elaine. All have germinated successfully but I've run out of big tubs to plant them into so watch this space.

The tubs are filled with a very rich compost and the idea is to have the runners climb up the canes and then ramble through the hedge which is about two metres high. It might work, it might not but I just love trying new ways to increase veg production. 

But it's not all about gardening up here at Solway Towers. On Tuesday we had a trip out to the dark side (Scotland). My wife and I are both charity shop fanatics and Dumfries has a few good ones. It also has a very irreverent gull about to leave a deposit on the head of Robert Burns!