Digging and more digging

The weather this afternoon was glorious; 13C, sunny and clear and I was down to just a tee-shirt for most of the afternoon. The birds seem to think spring’s on its way as they were signing really loudly, I worked until just after six pm and the sunset was red in the west and the full moon was just rising over the barn as I finished – it all looked great.

I’ve been digging all day, the ground that’s been rotovated is nearly all neatly turned over now by hand and looks great, the soil is good I think. The rotovator breaks up the soil well but, where it’s going into rough grass, it just cuts up or buries the couch grass roots and dandelions which is why I decided I needed to turn it over again by hand. I took out two big barrow loads of couch and weed roots but, of course, it’s only necessary to do this the once and in future I’ll be able to use the rotovator to keep it clean, The raspberry canes (framboisier) and blackberries (murier) are soaking overnight ready to go in tomorrow, they all look good and the currants (groseille) are shooting away in their temporary pots so this week is gardening week!