18 April: mulching the Bogsy beds

Sunday, 18 April 2021

At home

My first mission was to plant the rest of my potatoes in containers.

I’ve decided I like to harvest tatties from containers because it is so easy to get them all without damaging them while digging. I still planted a few stray tatties around the old stump in Alicia’s back yard to test how true the dire warnings are about waiting three years before planting them in the same place.

While clearing out a container, I found these roots of runner beans!

They were so interesting, and still appeared to have life in them, so I planted them in a barrel in the south Catio to see what they might do.

My second mission today was to finish forming some new beds along the metal path and into the wayback sit spot.

Before

Allan had helped me move the three largest rocks with the hand cart. I started wheelbarrowing mulch from Alicia’s driveway through the back garden to the Bogsy Wood. My big toe hurt, a chronic problem that is usually lessened by taking my sock off. This is why sometimes socks are left here and there in the garden. Today, it just kept burning at the toe tip but was not going to deter me from my mission.

I also dug a half barrow of soil from the old weed and sod mound at the south end of Alicia’s lawn and am almost at the point of breaking through to that fun path I still would like to have. Might happen after all.

This is the view into the garden from Alicia’s back lawn.

….where I can also see a hidden area that needs the removal of some huge velvet grass.

This seems to be the same grass that in the north of England is known as Yorkshire fog and which I read about in Monty Don’s book, My Garden World.

In confirming that, I read that it is an invasive species here. Its beautiful pink inflorescences give me intense sneezing attacks. I once picked some for a bouquet before I knew that!

As I moved mulch from the driveway to the back corner, I repeatedly passed Skooter having a lazy day on the cat bench.

After the beds were mulched and edged, I was well chuffed and looked forward to planting them.

The view looking west across the Bogsy mounds.

A stray tulip

Allan mowed Alicia’s back lawn. While I miss it being a meadow with mown paths…

…the mowing is successfully daunting the bindweed and Himalayan blackberries from returning. That area was all blackberry before.

Skooter wakes up

The route I had taken with mulch

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Frogs by the pond

Ilwaco post office garden

In the quiet evening time, we watered and weeded our volunteer garden at the post office. I wish we had taken a before photo because it looked utterly terrible with yellowed bulb foliage. The difference would have shown dramatically.

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During

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After

It took determination to get it done. The weather had gotten cold and windy. I had not intended to weed and tidy so much at the post office till I saw how bad it had been looking. The watering was what had drawn us there. It’s so terribly dry that we should be…but are not…watering at the port, too. I just cannot bear to start the full watering rounds this early.