I was not alone – cheery Brian & Pauline where weeding their impressive salad crop & putting up some war memorabilia in & on their shed – “Dig for Victory” & all that. “We went to the most wonderful shop today, & I could not resist these postcards & signs!” beamed Plum, before offering me a cup of tea & a wagon wheel.
Their small shed is an Aladdin’s cave – everywhere you look there’s a homely touch – curtains at the window, a cork board for clippings & interesting bits, a couple of scarecrow dolls sit on a shelf, an emamel string tin, pots stacked neatly with notebooks & seed packets. They have some lovely herbs on the go too by the bench – lemon thyme, mint & sage with birdfeeders everywhere & a buddleia tree to attract the butterflies.
Julie (2nd best plot) was around too, & collared me for my 50p entry fee for both the sunflower & pumpkin competitions – I selected the potential prize winning plants from a tray & hurried back to the plot to plant them out.I had a dozen LEEKS (mrs d) to plant out – as the leeks were disappointing last year (maybe because they were late in after the early potatoes came up), I’ve kept some space aside for them in the potato bed, & hope they will do better.
As I hoed, I was joined by a robin – he was completely fearless darting right down by me for the odd worm – at one point (& for one heart stopping moment), I thought that I’d hoed his head off. He even posed for a (disappointingly poor) photo – on the side of the bed, & then on the hoe handle as I fumbled for the camera.
I watered the leeks in then planted out a few flower seedlings at the front of the plot – I’m gradually taking out the wall flowers as they fade & popping seedlings in their place. Hopefully, I won’t have too much of a gap before the front has flowers again.I discovered four self seeding sunflowers form last year – a lovely surprise – so I relocated them to the front edge of the plot by neighbour Ted, & I’m looking forward to their happy faces nodding away come the summer!
your site must be birdie heaven, not surprised he comes way too close to the hoe.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, Mum had a virtually tame robin that would sit on the handle of her fork or spade when it was resting in the soil and she'd have to shoo it off in order to start digging again.