Busy Sunday

I've spent the entire day outdoors - a blush of sun on my face and hint of extra blonde in the hair bears witness to it. Scratches, dents, bruises and the odd embedded thorn are indicators of just what I did outside - sorted out the garden!

Although a bit on the windy side, after the last few day's rain today was lovely and warm and sunny. Perfect for diving in and doing a lot of things I've neglected. First up though was a trip to my local garden centre to stock up on potting soil, compost, kraalmis, 2 punnets of seedlings (basil and lettuce varieties) and a couple of seed packets - oh, and some weedeater cable too, as it only just made it through the last lawn-attacking episode before it ran out.

Back home I dumped it all in the yard and set to. First up - daisy bush. It had grown so huge that half of it was dead, and some of the branches had started to sprout roots where they touched soil. So it got severely chopped back, and the sprouty bits planted out along the boundry with the neighbours. I ended up with leftovers in a pile as high as I am tall! Next job - repotting things. The spider lily got divided into 5 pots, the rose that wasn't doing well in shady soil got a potting in a sunny place. The already-done roses were treated to a weed-removal and compost layer. Avo seedling and Adam fig (black figs) mini-trees have new homes on the slope below my house, outside of my property - and protected from the garden services guys by fencing. They're in places where the view won't be blocked by the time they're full grown, and I hope they'll one day produce good things for all who pass by. The birds were up next - a new feeder tray for the fruit eaters hammered into the fence post - an item I liberated from the maintenance scrap heap yesterday afternoon. (During all this time the washing was being done too... true multi-tasking! :-) ) The rose bed by the fence got a going-over to remove grass and check on Justin Thyme's growth - yeah I know, we're really corny. Also got a layer of compost. Final task - the strawberries were uprooted, seperated and replanted - we now have 13 plants instead of 5! Chinese garlic chives - same story. All other empty (of useful things, full of grass) pots were turned out into the fern and mint patch, under cover of the arums.

And now the sun's going down so gardening is at an end.

Still to accomplish are the remainder of the veggie bed - with seeds of two kinds of tomato, bush green beans, cucumbers, chilies, baby marrows (zucchini) and echinacea to go in. The basil and lettuce seedlings will get a spot too, but for now they're on the table that houses my son's cactus collection, still in their 6-pack punnets. The rosemary, parsley, one rose, geranium, fennel and arums already in that bed may be moved a bit to improve companion planting options. Now that the daisy bushes are done, I can give the lawn a decent cut too. The arums need dead-heading and leaf removal. One small flower bed is a bit overgrown with grass so that will be sorted out and the irises replanted in a good place. Still trying to find the best spot for the elephant ear plant, which has been moved a few times but is certainly not in the right place yet.

I'm left grubby and sweaty and tinted nicely brown (should have worn a bikini! :-) ). The hands just had some serious attention - a scrub, gel-cleanse and moisturizer combo that's left them feeling more like hands and less like bark. Whatever dirt still is under the nails has been painted over with this week's coat of nail polish... :-) And I can tell when I hit the bath later all those cuts on my arms are going to be felt.

But I've done a lot. I've spent the day away from this screen and got the garden into the first semblance of summer order. With the sun setting later and later, evenings can once again be spent happily hands-in-dirt post-walk.

Summer? Bring it on!