One Year On
One year on there is a real sense of the growing season ebbing away, quite a different feel to last September when everything was just starting. The weather was quite different too, scorching last year vs sodden this year.
There are a few similarities, I’m back to digging and I’m planting strawberries again, I’ve even got another pile of weeds forming but this summer it doesn’t look like the heap will ever dry out sufficiently to set it aflame.
The strawberry bed was a mass of tangles, strawberry runners twirled around bindweed stems and I felt it was time to have a clean up. I’m probably a little late actually but I’m sure they’ll be happier with some breathing room now. It also gave me chance to clear out the last remaining patch of bindweed hiding underneath the pond liner.
Here’s the yearly progress shot from the water butt – anticlockwise: Sept 07, Mar 08, Aug 08, Sept 08.
What a transformation. Your shed is looking very classy – I’ve just got one for our plot and it’s currently the bog standard orange-brown colour. I feel inspired.
It all looks very productive – we just planted our first strawberry bed. How often do you ‘renew’ your plants? We’ve been told every three, four or five years … but which?
I was told to refresh them even more often but I haven’t a clue what the optimum period is. I think I will just replace a few of the scraggier looking plants each year.
Sounds like a plan even we could master … replace the scragglies!
Wow, great progress. I think we’re going backwards at the moment…
Do I notice a big clump of comfrey in some of your photos? I’m rueing the day I ever planted mine – it’s so invasive.
That is certainly comfrey you’ve spotted there. It doesn’t seem to spread much but there is no getting rid of it. I planted my shed on one clump and it is now lifting it above its foundations.