I made it outside again today. I had dental surgery a week and a half ago, with an infection/abscess developing afterwards, so it’s only been a couple of days since I have been relatively pain free again. Last week I made it out before the abscess got too bad, and helped bring a pallet of wood briquettes in, followed by some tidying up of the growing beds. It was gentle exercise, and an absolute relief to be outside breathing the fresh air.

First job was cutting back the lavender and roses along the side of the house, and pulling out as much grass as I could find.

Then tidying Erika’s garden, cutting back all the dead flowerheads to make way for new growth, and raking up all the long grass and dead bits off her patch. I’ll be covering the main section of her garden with cardboard and a decent layer of compost as soon as I am fit enough to cart compost around again – shouldn’t be long now!

And then clearing all the dead flowerheads and stalks from the vegetable growing beds. Needs a bit more work, there are some clumps of snowdrops and daffodils that I’ll move across to Erika’s garden, and some more grass clumps to remove. Then a fresh layer of compost can go down ready for the new growing season.

I also cut back the sage a bit, it’s beautifully healthy, but it’s nice to have a big enough space there now. I’m going to move last year’s pumpkin trellises over to go here, there’ll be courgette plants, runner beans, tomatoes, sweetcorn and sunflowers in various places along the bed.

This end patch has rhubarb and mint already well-established. It needs a fresh coat of compost, and some careful tending. I think I got most of the nettles out last year but there’s always some escape.

That took some of an afternoon – a far cry from the days and days I spent digging out docks and pulling out couch grass and nettles!

This week I decided to give another patch of roses a haircut. They get so tangled up with bindweed and long grass but hopefully this year they will be able to breathe a bit better.

So many snowdrops!

And the front garden is just as pretty as it has been the past two years. Full of snowdrops and winter aconites. The path is going to look so lovely when we manage to finish it. And I’m stunned and so happy that the winter rose didn’t die after I planted it out after all!

Then I went and checked on how the kitchen garden is coming along. First thing I saw was this marigold – what a tenacious little thing! I sowed a lot of marigold seeds along the deadhedge last autumn, hoping that overwintering the seeds might bring them up earlier this year. I think I sowed spinach seeds along here too, but I would need to check my diary for that.

Last year I collected a whole lot of allium canadense (a type of wild leek) bulblets, and a lot of seeds from garlic flower heads that I hadn’t harvested in time. And they are growing! It’ll be another year and a half before they begin to be big enough to harvest but it is always exciting to see new growth.

The wild garlic is doing fabulously. And so are all the tiny bulbs I collected up when I was transplanting it!

And my top-onions / walking onions that my friend Lisbeth gave me are settling into their new home nicely too – all three sets of bulblets have taken and are growing!

I’ve started doing some more focussed cardio exercise again now, so hopefully by the weekend I’ll be fit enough to get working outside again properly. I’ve missed my garden.