On the last day of a sunny spell, Manolo the tractor guy came and disced the expansion of the flower patch to about double, and the old garden that took me literally years to dig by hand. He´ll come back when it stops raining in May to re-disc and leave it nice and crumbly for making raised beds. I´m thinking I´d like a perennial/physic/monks garden with herbs and roses up in that corner, but for the time being it´s just a big muddy space where the dogs get filthy.
Yesterday, I re-trenched along the old patch, in anticipation of the two weeks of rain predicted. I´m tired. And crabby. And what´s really exhausting is that continual sense that you don´t know what you´re doing. I wish I could have started all this 5 years ago, but that´s the way these things go, I guess. Better now that 5 years later. As it is, I have to do everything in half hour intervals after doggie walks, between doggie meals, during doggie naps and for the time Briga will tolerate being tied up and teased by her big brother, assuming it´s not raining.
My biggest challenges right now are the weather and the dogs. The puppy gets under the plastic mesh and what she doesn´t dig up, she tramples. She´ll go wild when I start flinging old horse bedding around. Now I´m tired again just thinking about it.
Hi, Coco!
ReplyDeleteI went through the photos first - it is so delightful to see your house and outbuildings and the garden - and I saw that poor, pitiful puppy . . . Surely that is one of the saddest faces ever. And I can hear what she is thinking: "Here am I, an angel among dogs, and nobody appreciates me."
Isn't "modern" technology wonderful? Imagine - you could have spent another year digging up the new garden patch, but - wha la! - it is done. And I think when one has a cacophony of ideas it works just to start anywhere, just throw yourself into it at any point to get the momentum (after a rest, of course . . .). I am not worried about you!
Pam
Hi Pam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your vote of confidence! It´s funny, but I read her face more as ¨Are you going to let me in or what, peasant? And make it snappy.¨ She´s very independent.
What a tractor can do in half an hour is amazing. I went ahead and covered the open areas with black plastic, which is an environmental no-no, and now I have to lift it up again to spread the manure and bedding. (See what I mean about not knowing what I´m doing?) They do recycle agricultural plastic around here, so it´s not as bad as it might be. And it´s frightening how fast the ground wants to go back to pasture, so I´m hoping it will kill some of the germinating weeds in the coming months.
And I suppose I should just be glad that something germinated in the fall and is now there to be run over and dug up, but I´m afraid my attitude is not as sunshine and unicorns as that.
Hope all is well in your part of the world, and spring is on it´s way!
Cheers
Hi Coco,
ReplyDeleteNaughty Briga! She has this look on her face which says: "I didn't do it, it was ... Breo. Yeah, maybe it was him!"
The soil is looking good! And what is this thing called rain? Haven't seen it around these parts for a while.
Have you made any choices about what flowers to plant, and are you going to start from seedling or seed?
Chris
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteOMG take some rain, please! I nearly lost a boot in one of the plowed sections trying to get it covered again after the dogs had been at it!
I will be starting from seeds, not because I´m good at it, but because there´s no place in Spain that offers plugs. That might be a business opportunity someone with greenhouse space might want to look into. There are also no major seed sellers in Spain, so everything comes from the UK. With Brexit looming, that may become a problem. I ordered from Floret in the US on a whim, and got charged 28€ in additional customs when it arrived. Grrr. Lesson learnt.
Trying some new varieties of annuals, should be thinking about some new dahlias. No rose order this year, which is sad, but my back and our bank account appreciates it.
Cheers
Coco:
ReplyDeleteYou know what - I had forgotten about the black plastic. I may well have to resort to it. I have been saving any large paper bags that I come upon, but they are not going to go very far and I know from last spring's experiment of laying down rolls of butcher's paper, or something like, that it will decompose by early summer and then the weeds still come up. One can usually dry out the plastic, roll it up, and reuse it.
How crazy is it that Spain has no major seed sellers? I don't get it. And 28 extra Euros!
I wish I had a Euro button on my laptop. Also an enye, which I don't know it's real name.
Pam
Hi Pam,
ReplyDeleteI never know if it´s an English/American thing or what, but the business of selling plants, seeds, etc., here is just odd. Big box stores don´t have garden sections of bedding plants, just tools and maybe fencing/gravel etc. They sell packets of mostly vegetable seeds, but the producers are French. All the flower farmers I know order from Chiltern et. al. in the UK. I order bareroot roses from Holland, but there are UK, French, Italian and German vendors as well. All the locals have are 2 gallon containers from Meilland. And the local nurseries we´ve found are unimpressive, shall we say, and don´t seem particularly concerned with variety names. I´ve got a couple more I need to investigate, looking for shrubs for foliage.
I can only assume that the barrier to starting a business in bureaucracy and cost must be prohibitive, because Spain certainly has a climate to be producing seeds/plants/flowers on it´s own. Of course, now Monsanto and Bayer probably own all the patents anyway.
If you knew the number of times I hit the ´รง´ instead of return...
Coco:
ReplyDeleteI feel another niche for you: A seed business!
Pam
I'd love a physics garden as well. Would look lovely and be very useful at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired as well, can do sit down work for hours but activity work is slow. Must be the time of the year. Can get me down though as I want to get out on to the farm and start tidying up, but it is wet as well here in SW France so can't do much anyway. This is the time which tests us smallholders / homesteaders for sure!
Hi Vera,
ReplyDeleteI´m down to my last box of dahlia tubers to separate, and then I´ll have to start doing housework.
I do need to tidy up the trenches so the forecast rain can drain away.