'March' - ing on..

Towards the back end of February, my business work started to pick up with some regular customers wanting a ‘spring’ clean through various borders – in essence a general tidy-up after the winter months. As the month moved into March, all my regular customers have been in touch, and together with a couple of new jobs my weekly work diary seems remarkably full in a short space of time.

I undertook a digging job that was fairly tough going, clearing old shrubs, roots etc from a couple of borders in preparation for future planting. It certainly tested my staying power!

Early this month I started on some border makeovers. Initially I put together a planting plan which the customer liked, and now the implementation phase has started. On the 20^th, I finally completed the clearing, digging, sorting out and landscaping the borders ready for lawn seeding plus planting. One new experience during this preparation phase was digging during a snow storm! I was well protected with various layers of clothing and as the snow wasn’t sticking I thought what the heck, I’ll carry on. Just as I thought conditions might lend themselves to planting out next week, the weather has other ideas. So, as is usual with gardening, patience is the order of the day. Experience tells me it’s no good rushing, trying to plant out in freezing cold soil, with harsh easterly winds – this is just asking for trouble (and loss of plants + investment money!).

I visited the allotment early in the month and forked over the area where I’m going to plant out onions and shallots. At that time the soil wasn’t too bad, and certainly showed promise in that the soil broke up easily, almost crumbly in places. Not entirely sure what state it’s in now given today’s persistent rain & sleet. My second early potatoes are chitting in a cool spare room, and will need planting out in the next 2 weeks or so. At this rate many of my veg crops are going to be planted / sowed late. I’ve sown some veg seed under glass [unheated] (broccoli, cabbage, various lettuce, leeks). I couldn’t wait any longer and just needed to get things started.

I managed to be successful at the job interview for working at the holiday cottages at Snowshill Manor this year. Decided that today would be a good day to start working through the garden borders, doing a general post winter tidy-up. Unfortunately, given the elevated position of the village, the weather decided to dump snow everywhere – so today’s work was called off. I’m looking forward to working here again, being able to bring some changes to the cottage gardens and enjoying the company of staff and volunteers.