It Feels So Good To Get My Groove Back :)

Its nice when you rediscover a joy you thought you had lost or you felt hard done by to find isn’t it? That’s how I have been feeling, yep I feel great now that my gardening mojo is back in gear again and truth be told I have this blog and you readers out there to thank as well for its return. If I wasn’t blogging I think it would have taken me much longer to get back into the swing of things, simply put if I don’t do anything I have nothing to write about.

So what have I been doing these past few days. CLEANING, yep that’s right cleaning but not yucky house work stuff, hell nooo!!! I’m talking about the garden, I briefly mentioned that the garden had become a bit of a safety hazard in my last posting and since Friday I have been working on righting that wrong.

First off the greenhouse needed sorting out and suddenly I have walking space again and everything is back in its rightful place. Next was the composting area which had become an untidy stack of empty pots, etc, everything is now stacked neatly and I just have to get hubby to help me lay some very heavy paving slabs that I have stacked elsewhere in front of the compost bins, which should make walking there in the winter a more pleasant unmuddy affair.

Once the two main storage areas was tidied I moved onto the landscape fabric covered designated fruit area and got rid of any dead potted plants and basically put away all the empty pots that were laying around, restacked the bricks the kids had made balancing beams out of, swept up any detritus, etc and generally made it safer to traverse.

The vegetable patch saw all the gardening tools, pots, seed trays, removed and put away. I have picked up and put away the unused for two years irrigation tubing which only has been serving as a trip up device. Any cane or old sticks have also been picked up and stored in their appropriate place and now it’s a joy to walk in between the beds without having to worry if there are any tools, etc to trip over. Just need to restart laying the brick paths down so I won’t have to spend too much time weeding the walk ways.

The lawn needed mowing again after the recent heavy rainfalls we had last week and lastly the rest of the garden had a proper look over and had any left out tools, kids toys and any plastic pots that may have been blown into various nooks and crannies removed and put away.

Its just the flower beds to tidy now but while the mini beast population are still enjoying the few existing flowers etc I’ll hold off on any major tidying of that area. To tell the honest truth I generally leave it to be a bit of a winter cover haven for hibernating beneficial insects, plus the visiting bird population always surprise me on the seed heads they become interested in especially if there has been prolonged hard frost. So any tiding in that area will be more superficial than anything else, with the major tiding occurring mid spring.

Now the garden is tidier I’m happy to take you on a video tour of it, I’m afraid it’s a bit long (16+ minutes) so you might want to grab a cookie and a cup of tea or some other beverage of your choice to munch and drink while you watch, I hope you enjoy it. PS its been a bit of a too do to get this on here hence why its more than a day late and in two parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrSCRN43dhk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VKk7W236tg

And now just to close here are few pics taken since my last posting.

So what’s blooming?

A Japanese Anemone that has sidled under the fence from next door.

A double hollyhock is opening up.

Even with all my neglect the garden is still producing, maybe it’s forgiven me, I sure hope so.

Blackberry muffins and pancakes from the free wild bramble pickings at the back of the garden.

My attempts at plaiting garlic were dismal even with the link I got from Allotment Heaven’s blog. The garlic bulbs that have hard necks from sending up flower stalks were simply tied to some twine and will be used first.

And now for the mini beast of the garden...

The peacock butterfly has found a friend and they have both have been around now since Saturday, one even found its way inside late Sunday evening but it was safely released.

I was so excited when this female Holly Blue landed so I could finally id it. She was extremely skittish so the photo quality isn’t as nice as I would have liked.

I think red tail bumblebees are sexy but they rarely stay in one spot long enough for me to photograph them.

Loads of hoverflies still around ….

These black and white ones are really beautiful but they will not stay still for me to capture their pretty bands.

Another giant hoverfly ‘Volucella solaria’ showed itself today again.

Saw my second mealy bug destroyer larva on Sunday.

The pond is still keeping frogs happy.

And another type of frog well not really its an insect called a frog hopper or ‘Philaenus spumarius’ to be exact.

And while pulling some carrots I found a snail in between them, when I went to get rid of it I found it was in the process of depositing eggs, well I’m quite sure the birds will be happy with their treat, yep I removed every single one.