Spec's Garden - I am thinking of a complete change

This thread of yours always amuses me - the title comes us as "Spec's Garden - I am thin" and now you're trying to convince us that you're "beginning to think that you're past it".
Dream on................

After reading your comment above, again Veggie, I realise that you might be thinking that I am trying to kid you on when I said I was thinking I was past it, especially when you seem to be able to cope with your garden, but you are right with the Dream on, I am far too young to be thinking that way, thanks for the reality check

Unable to get any work done yesterday due to rain, so was hoping it would be a bit better today, but strong winds and heavy rain has put paid to that, almost all the flowers have been battered flat, though my gladioli are still looking well, but don't think they will be in the garden much longer as OH is eyeing them up

Started planting some daffodil bulbs in the area I have reclaimed from the grass, but rain started and as its quite heavy I've had to stop, doubt if I will be able to get back out, as I think it's on for the day

I have quite a lot of soft green waste to be cleared from the garden, with French marigolds, dahlias, rudbeckias, asters and crocosmia (without the seedheads) I am thinking of running over all of it with the lawnmower to shred it up, then covering the veg bed with it, I have been mulching the garden with similar over the past year, grass cuttings, seedless weeds and thin branches from shrubs etc. but it has always been around established plants with no ill effects but can anyone see a problem with sowing seeds and transplants

You'll probably have to move the mulch aside before sowing/planting so that the roots are in contact with the soil. Once the plants are established you may be able to move it back but be aware of slugs living in it.

That’s just what I do on the veg beds. In the spring I remove anything that hasn’t rotted and sow/plant in the ground. What un rotted material I don’t have space for between the rows of spuds goes on the compost heap. It doesn’t pose a problem and where I have inadvertently dropped the odd seed head I have actually got some rather nice new perennial plants. Just need to find room for them now!! It’s sheet composting and saves a huge amount of effort lugging it to the compost heap and back again. The other up side of it is there are no weeds to remove. Top off the waste with grass cuttings and leaves and by spring most of it will have gone and it doesn’t look too bad through the winter.

^^^^^ Thanks for the comments girls, Veggie if there is a high content of soft material in the mix would that not keep the slugs happy and Roitelet do you add any feeding below or over your mulch?

Sorry Spec, I have no idea what keeps a slug happy - I don't even know if they're happy eating my brassicas - or whether they do it just to annoy me!

The young man who said he would take my infected Ash tree down, came late afternoon yesterday and cut the tree down, he had given me a price for cutting it, I had asked him simply to cut it down, dropping it into the field where once it was dropped I could cut it up as and when I had time, he dropped not one but two trees that needed to come down, then proceeded to cut of the large branches to a manageable length and then cut up the trunk into sizes I could manage myself, once he was finished I handed him money, which he counted then held back the extra that I had included as a thank you for the extra work he had carried out he would only take the first amount we had agreed upon, this is what I would call very good service

To follow on to my last post, the wood that I have now I intend placing a lot of it at the bottom of my raised bed, as a sort of hugelkuture type of bed, I am doing this to try and cut down the need for watering in the future especially if we start getting warmer summers, the raised bed will be sitting on a concrete base and sealed on three sides (the three sides will be made with concrete slabs) not sure if it will work, but I will never know till I try