Every part of the garden has now had some attention: there are no more dead flower stems or collapsed shrubs to remove. It’s now a case of finishing off, planting to fill some of the gaps, trimming, tidying and making good for next week. We might even have time to start weeding the stock beds.

This week I had the pleasant but strange first time experience of having my veg plot planned and planted by someone else. Deb volunteered for this job suspiciously quickly, probably out of enthusiasm, but just as likely to avoid me roughly throwing a few seeds in, higgledy-piggledy. In Deb’s hands the veg plot has become a work of precision, with lines as straight as a roman road. If I had had a spirit level and scalpel to hand I’m sure they’d have been put to good use. I will need to raise my game or be gently ushered out of the garden lest I mess things up.


I did consider uploading a photo of Deb with tea mug in hand, if only for the entertainment of her former colleagues at Dunham. But that would have been mean after such a busy first week.

April 22, 2007