Well, after such gloomy grey skies through January, yesterday was brilliant clear blue skies and bright (too bright) sunshine all day.
And when working in folk’s gardens, gardening, made me feel so much better and much more positive.
Everything and everywhere was lit up brightly with contrasting dark shaded areas throughout the day.
For my wellbeing, it was a win-win!
“Stay away gloomy grey sky days…just need brighter and sunnier times!”
Well, one of my customers has three large timber framed compost bays within their even larger garden.
When I started my gardening services there two years ago, it was the first thing I noticed, well, beyond the plants and friendly chats with the house owner, of course!
The ‘decomposing’ material had been sat there for years, within three connected timber slatted bays built several years before. The slatted sides allowed air to ‘hopefully’ enter each bay to assist with the decomposition of the material within them.
Although appropriate material had been added to it each year, its thick layers of grass clippings and Autumnal leaf fall squashed down and compacted as tightly as possible by previous gardeners, had prevented air from getting into the material to assist in the decomposition process.
So, my plan was to dig through each bay, mixing it all up, providing air spaces within the bays of material to help to speed up this process.
And by doing this a few times during my first year there resulted in the most finest and decomposed organic material one could wish for!
Yes, Gardener’s Gold!
Repeated digging through the organic material in each bay helped it to decompose.
Barrow loads taken to borders to spread.
A thick 4 inch (10mm) layer spread over planted borders.
The effects of adding a thick layer of compost has benefitted the plants by
And, following the work done during Spring 2024, the process of creating more compost continued through the year and Autumn, filling up the compost bins to create even more to use in Summer 2025.
now for a cup-of-T!
As we are here on the 240th day of January 2025, I can just not fathom out why it’s taking soooo lonnnng to welcome February.
It happens every year.
I don’t have a great deal of outside work to be enthused about so the days do seem to be a tad longer, almost like one day is like a usual week!
I’m sure that a shortened Febru’y will scoot past like it didn’t exist.
It’s just this ‘drag it out’ month called Janu(forever)ary I never seem to cope with very well!
At this time of year there’s not so much to do in my customer’s gardens, it’s a quieter time. There are a few maintenance tasks to get involved in though.
Today needed to cut back first year’s growth on a native hedgerow I planted in March 2024.
Keeping the plants well watered through the year and keeping weeds at bay at the base of each plant has resulted in a good start in their growth.
So it was now necessary to cut back all growth with the customer asking for each to be 3 feet high which I did. Obviously they will probably grow to be about 5 feet high by mid summer and can then be clipped back again to the required height asked for.
Cutting back stimulates side ( and vertical) growth and allows each plant to thicken out when they burst into life in Spring!
The Caravan in distance is not mine!
The native hedgerow included Thorn plants and yes those ‘ thorns ‘ pierce fingers easily…I can (v)ouch for that!
There’s nothing really wrong in just snoozing for fifteen minutes in the afternoon is there?
I mean, tomorrow I’m going out to play working in folk’s gardens so I’m entitled to charge up my batteries before hand!…
Well, that’s my excuse anyways.
Now for some biscuits and cups of T!
I always tell folk here in the UK when they are plunged into Wintertime short days and long dark evenings that 13th January is a marker point to say ” hey, you will notice it just a bit lighter in later afternoon from 13th January onwards.”
And so, even on this heavily grey toned cloudy afternoon its just past 16.30 or 4.30pm and it’s still light although daylight is now slowly fading away (twas dark a 16.00 or 4pm. only a couple of weeks ago.)
And as each day dawns it will be just noticibily lighter each afternoon!
Bring on Spring!
Today is Monday 13 the January apparently…feels more like 31st January or even the 131st January…. It’s like that old saying:-
30 days have September, April, June and November.
All the rest have 31 apart from February which has 28 and 29 each leap year.
Oh and not forgetting January, which has 10042!
Time for some biscuits and a cup of T
Every Friday evening I weigh myself just to keep a check on my weight.
Every Christmas it increases …I get that.
Last Friday I had put on a couple of pounds in weight over Christmas week..that’s ok..can accept that.
Sneakily though without me realising it….New Year decided it would lump a load of weight onto me…why New Year?… Why did you do that to me?
Ok….so here comes two months of hard work to make it all melt away!
Halt the biscuits..drink more ‘cups of T’
So each year I trundle off to my GP to get my annual flu jab, and each year I usually get a mild dose of flu soon after receiving the jab. I can cope with that.
Well, this time round from November 2024 January 2025, I haven’t had any effects from my flu jabs whatsoever…. Until…now!
I’ve caught it..flu….Not making it up…totally zonked out with aching joints, crazy temperature fluctuations like overheating one minute, freezing cold and shivering the next ( adding clothes then taking them off almost just as fast), coughing, tickly cough, sore throat, headaches, and runny nose pipes….I mean…I thought that having a flu jab was really to prevent such a concentrated dose getting to me….
So next year, need to think again.. What’s the point, and reading up on flu jabs, lots of articles say they don’t work, or more accurately, they don’t protect against every strain of flu doing the rounds. Now I thought flu was flu and I guess you can’t get protected against every type of flu going, but me, just as usual… presumed wrongly, that having my flu jab would provide total cover from me catching it and being like I am currently.
Now where’s the biscuits and cups of T!
After the total frenzy of Christmas past, my planning to start work in customer’s gardens again has just been put on hold a while.
Following a bombardment of snow on Sunday 5th January 2025, providing a good ‘deep’ covering of about 2 inches here, (that’s quite deep for us here really🤣)
Then as rain took over during Sunday afternoon into the evening and through Monday 6th created a total aesthetically pleasing mis match of melting snow linked between puddles of rain.
Obviously as all professional gardeners know…. “Keep of the grass,” and stay away from sodden gardens until it all dries up. Needless to say that the overnight temperatures of minus 2 real feel minus 7 have now left all gardens here sparkly white with frost.
So, gardening in customer’s gardens can wait a bit longer. Oooh now where’s my bookkeeping to update with cups of T, bikkies and warmth…plenty of time for gardening soon!
Telstales 