2025 - What I did today

Cutting round the edge of old carpet in living room making space round the skirting for painter next week. Escaped to the garden potted on some herbs for giveaways, sowed carrots, weeded a little bit.

Sowed melon seeds.
Emptied a 30 ltr pot and harvested 2 pounds of potatoes .
Mixed the compost from the pot with coir ready for potting up something else.
Weeded and cut back some comfrey. Broke my favourite secateurs - lost the spring from between the blades. After much searching and cursing, I found the spring but it seems to have sheared off.
Looked for another pair of usable secateurs - threw 2 pairs in the bin. WD40'd a couple of pairs in the hope that they'll be usable - but they'll never be as good as my favourite pair.

You should be able to buy a replacement spring. I just did a quick search and lots of options came up.

Thanks for looking. The panic is over - I've found the refurbished Felco secateurs that I bought a while ago and was keeping for best.  I'd put them somewhere so safe that I couldn't find them. 

Back to the Saga of the Secateurs! My OH kept everything, in labelled drawers and boxes in his shed - nails, screws, wires and, you've guessed it - springs. Found a drawer full of springs of all sizes and strengths - two of which fit the secateurs.  He knew everything would come in handy one day!!

Nothing so triumphant as finding a long stored screw to fit the perfect pair of snippers.

Planted out a free tomato acquired from the pavement the next street over, a pumpkin, and twenty sweetcorn. Watered. Trimmed the wild edges of the plot (well the least wild parts, I guess) and covered again with old compost bags and cardboard to try to limit weed growth. Didn't intend to weed owing to limited time but grabbed up handfuls of bindweed as well.

Big job of the day was mowing the path down to the end of the garden. Not perfect but at least I can walk down there without being attacked by the undergrowth, which can be quite vicious in places.
Started the day with watering the GHs and tying the toms to their supports. Plenty of seedlings that need to be planted out, but the soil is so dry, and I know I won't water them once planted, so I'm keeping them near the house and the waterbutts until we have some rain. Looks like there may be some at the weekend. Fingers crossed!

Today I continued digging out paths and laying membrane and filling with stone.

First couple of barrow loads (obviously not full barrows)     

At the end of the day.      . Will do more tomorrow.

Highlight of the day was catching a big old trout on a Mayfly pattern. Well it is May isn't it?

I have noticed some lovely big foliage growing in a ditch on the way to work. Today, on the way home after requesting the estate agent to finally close the deal on our farm since my partner finally has a Swedish ID number that enables him to be on the deed.... we decided to stop to have a look at what that foliage actually is. It looks very much like rhubarb's rougher cousin, and they looked really dry today. When I pulled at one, the whole thing came up with a big piece of root. Well, that had to come home with me then to figure out if it's something we can plant.

Turns out it's butterbur, which spreads, but also stops soil erosion, which is great around our pond. It likes damp, which the pond bank can provide. With that, when I got home, I grabbed a spade and planted it on the opposite side of the pond to the house. Whilst there, I noticed all the gorgeous honeysuckle that grows wild there. There are loads of shoots from underground spreading, so I dug a few up and took back to the house with me. They'll be planted either side of the house, on the corners, and I will get some lovely climbing frames for them. Now the difficult thing will be not to go and get more, and instead focus on my very last university essay that needs to be done!

And boss, there seems that the certificate for the site has run out. How can I help with paying for it, please?

And boss, there seems that the certificate for the site has run out. How can I help with paying for it, please?

Its all in hand, Sarris and the host server is being updated. May be a while.

Lots of time in the garden either weeding, potting on or just sat reading.