Slow, but Sure

Sunday sunrise over the broch

Mum insists that January is not a month to do any gardening. I disagree. I believe there is a lot that can, and will, be done this month.

The problem with preparing the ground in January is that, if the soil is too wet or frozen, you can damage it by digging. But right now, the shrubbery is on hold and I'm trying to prepare the Kitchen Garden for planting this spring. The more I see in the news, the more I see the need to become as self-sufficient as possible.

The great thing about our plans for the Kitchen Garden is that we're trying the 'no-dig' method. This means that the soil will not get much disturbance. Instead, I am putting cardboard down and then compost above it. One of the beds has very poor drainage, so I'm trying putting homemade bark chips down before the compost. Yes, I know it's not recommended as a mulch because of slugs, but I think if the compost goes above it, the slugs won't be much of a problem. It's worth a try - that's how new techniques are discovered.

From the bottom of the "Wild Wood"

And we have no shortage of branches to chop with my new garden crusher. I've had two goes with it and only barely started on the giant pile in the middle of the lawn.

My class were sent home last week because there were too many cases of Covid, and they stayed off for the Thursday and Friday. This meant that, although I was teaching online, there was no traveling time and I wasn't as exhausted by the end of the school day. It was, in fact, a great opportunity to do some work in the Kitchen Garden. It was also glorious weather... cold, yes, it was January, but it was also sunny and beautifully quiet. Except for one noisy pheasant who was shouting off in what will soon be the Orchard.

I was clearing back the dead grasses and dock leaves from where I'm putting so no-dig raised beds. After looking for the rake unsuccessfully, I used by mattock as a scythe. It cut straight through the brittle weeds. If I had tried that before the winter, it would have been very hard work, but the weeds were dry enough to cut smoothly. I mounded it all up and I'm still not sure where it's all going. But it did give me a chance to create another raised bed with some of the breeze blocks that had been left.

While I was clearing the weeds, I came across a pile of old potatoes. No... I thought to myself as I bent to look closer... they weren't potatoes. They were old eggshells. After a bit of research, I realised they must be pheasant eggs that had hatched last year. I had been spending so much effort keeping an eye out for hedgehogs, I almost completely missed what was right under my nose!

Pheasant eggs

Over the weekend, Jude and I sorted through the wood pile in the Kitchen Garden into useful and useless. A lot of it, surprisingly, was useful and will form the sides of the raised beds when I've run out of breeze blocks. We then took 2 barrow loads of compost from the heap and put it on top of cardboard in the new raised bed. The compost heap is old, and difficult to get to so we're going to start with several smaller ones when we've used it all up.

It's slow progress, but that means it's also enjoyable. Take the time to watch the garden and relish in it all before you start the hard work.

Kitchen Garden clearing