Three and a half hours of hard labour in the garden.......

 I took this photo of the lawn in front of my garden studio as it shows the remarkable different between the grass where the chicken run was moved for just a couple of weeks whilst once in June and once in September onto the lawn.    The taller grass is where the run was - the grass is lush and green and totally weed free - what a huge difference - I am seriously thinking of moving the run around on the lawns this year so that the chooks get to do the weeding and fertilising and the scarifying!

 

Somewhere in the garden, there always seems to be a surprise of colour

Here are some helebores

 

I love their freckles

 

And there are such a variety of colours too.

 

The snow drops are so dainty and I always wonder why how they survive the bad winter weather

 

These have popped up in the newly sown lawned area.

 

The strawberries have gone crazy over the autumn and winter

 

I am going to have to thin them out

 

They seem to flourish in the hemcore which came from the chicken run

 

It was rather harder work than I thought digging up the 2nd year seedlings

 

I did do quite a lot - and I'll be taking them up the allotment tomorrow if it doesn't rain

 

They have been thinned out so are looking better

 

I still have quite a lot more to do though despite thinning them out here

 

The bantams wore themselves out scratching around in the fruit cage with me, so went off  to clean themselves up and have a rest.

 

Gozzie has lots of energy so she decided to have a dig and get some more worms from another raised bed

 

Where the rhubarb plants are breaking through and looking full of energy.  We are still eating fruit mixes which I cooked last year, of rhubarb, gooseberry, black currants, etc.

 I took the temporary fencing down and dug over the raised salad beds which are outside my garden studio - then put the fencing back - we get rabbits in our garden, and of course the chooks would love to have a scratch on it.

 

I raked the leaves and swept the lawns and run my little mower over them.

 

They look rather good after the winter we have had - and much better without the leaves and debris

 I stayed off this area of lawn as its the seeded patch.

 

This is the 'after' photo of the very first one posted.  It certainly has made a big difference and removing all the leaves and twigs etc and mowing it, was worth all the effort

 

The chooks found lots of insects after I had mowed

 

It was so nice to just sit and relax and watch them

 

I could sit there for hours!

In the garden - on a sunny spring morning....

It was such a lovely morning, that I slapped on the sunscreen and jacket and sun hat and spent some time in the garden

It always looks so sad after the winter, before the weather warms up so that the plants can recover from the snow.

 Whilst I was working, the banties took the opportunity to soak up some sunshine and have a doze.

 

Snow white Willow was really sound asleep and looks like a fluffly snow ball

 

Maudie is almost camouflaged on the left of Daisy

 I love seeing them flaked out in the sunshine - so peaceful and contented

 

If you have visited my blog before, you'll know that last year we had the garden room built on the back of the lounge.  It meant removing a long raised bed, and getting rid of the big fish pond - but it was the right decision for me.  We sowed some grass seed in the Autumn and had to cover it with netting, and canes to keep the birds off.  Although looking rather sad from the snow and bad weather, the seed germinated and is starting to grow so I removed all the netting etc - it looked so untidy.

 

And it had flattened with all the snow, so the birds, and chooks if they wished, could just walk all over it anyway.

 

This side has done pretty well which is a surprise as it's shady, and despite all my clearing up the leaves from next doors' shrubs shed their leaves all winter.

In a few months time this will look green and lush and you won't even notice the join!

 

This is one of Kath's beds which has been flowering all winter, although a lot of the perennials have died back.

 

There are penstemons still in bud

 

Even after all the snow we have had - amazing.

That's all for now - more tomorrow

Thank you for paying me a visit