Ravendale House

Today at last I planted some things outside. I started with the more robust plants, red onions and spring onions (grown from seed), and then moved on to the plants that will have the protection of a Schweppes cloche, namely the peas and cauliflowers, also grown from seed. Well that’s what I intended to do, but I ran out of cloches and energy by the time I’d planted the onions and 64 peas.

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The hardening off process is well underway now. Each morning before breakfast I get the small plants out of the conservatory and place them on the table and chairs in front of the house. Each evening I put them back again. I’m just itching to get them planted out.

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Today started grey and damp, but ended up quite bright and breezy, so I spent the afternoon weeding the flower bed that runs along the back of the house.

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Today it didn’t warm up until about 3pm, so I was a bit late getting going, but when I did get going I made a start on weeding flower bed 4. Now flower bed 4 is the worst of the flower beds (apart from flower bed 5 which I’ve already abandoned). I’ve never really ‘bottomed’ it, if you know what I mean, though it does have plenty of potential.

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Today I weeded flower bed 1, no really, I actually did weed flower bed 1, and then I went on to weed under the old apple trees, and one of the raspberry beds. After that I’d had enough.

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We got back from Lincoln a couple of hours ago, and guess what?

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This morning I decided to weed flower bed 1. I’ve done it a hundred times before so I just thought it was going to be a normal day. As I was digging something caught my eye, shining in the sunshine. On closer inspection, and to my absolute delight, I discovered is was a gold coin.

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Today I weeded flower bed 2. Not a big job you might say, but big enough. It’s always been a bit of a problem bed (but not the worst) due to the fact that it’s infested with a very pervasive grass which has long, strong, white roots, and if only half an inch is left in the ground it will re-grow, and then you’re back to square one.

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They were right, there was a sharp frost last night. The poor daffodils were on their knees this morning, but had rallied by lunchtime. How do they do that? First the strong winds and now this, they really are having a rough time this Spring. Good job I covered the gunnera.

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Today I dared myself to check out the root situation on the fuchsia cuttings. Not brilliant news I’m afraid, but with a bit of luck and not too much of a following wind (don’t want them to dry out now, do I!) I should have about a 50% success rate. Not bad but could do better.

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