Yard work

It's easy to forget that the 'fun' bits of housekeeping are still housekeeping and therefore need to be scheduled accordingly. If it's something I consider 'fun', then obviously it can wait until the seemingly never-ending drudgework is over. Yard work is my 'fun' and I neglect it accordingly.

This week, a bag of wet compost was spilled, small children revelled in it like piglets in mud, and muddy wellies were walked through the house. I now need to wash a carpet because I didn't attend to the yard.

Once I got going with the sweeping, I realised that I hadn't done it in months; so I pulled everything out and swept every nook and cranny. I moved onto weeding the patio stones and the pots and trimmed back the main bed.

I've rebuilt the micro-rockery I made to support a section of the main bed that was missing bricks; and replanted it with some new succulents.

I took some time to smell the flowers. The tomatoes are doing OK, I'm hoping we don't have a repeat of last year's blight. The redcurrant is in full fruit:

I wanted to use them to make raspberry and redcurrant jam, but I suspect that the kids will get to the ripe ones far faster than I ever will.

I wish we had a bigger garden to match my green fingered ambitions, but I know that I am lucky to have a garden at all. This was a barren patio and a forlorn bed covered in paving slabs when we moved in. It's now fragrant, green and sometimes edible for most of the year; frequently visited by bees and butterflies and other bugs. A job well done with what we have, all in all.