Today has been a fantastic, beautiful sunny day here. David and I have spent it in the garden clearing stuff ready for the new growing season beginning soon. I have posted a gallery of plant pics but this has to be my PotD.

It’s an ancient lawn roller that’s been here since long before my time in this house (no idea how old but to me it looks as if it could be Victorian) – how do you age a lawn roller? The drum is split in two, making it easy to turn. It’s got no handle so when I want to use it a broom handle or bit of 1”x2” wood gets inserted and it’s used that way. It was in the full, low sun and just looked so fantastic I thought it’d be a good symbol of our gardening activities.

During my ‘troubled times’ I really neglected the garden and it’s so big it turned to wilderness before I could blink! After my separation, I got a handyman to come and hack everything back again to some semblance of neatness and subsequently David and I have reseeded the lawn, extended the lawn back further after taking out a big-ish chunk of the soft fruit planting – we decided we didn’t need enough blackcurrant bushes for about 40lbs of blackcurrants a year when neither of us eats fruit at all. I used to pick about a quarter of the berries, make tonnes of jam and give it away! The rest went to the birds who pooed black poo for the latter half of the summer.

This year I’m planning to remove more of the soft fruit – the raspberries, redcurrants and gooseberries are all going to be replaced by more ornamental planting. I must say, I can understand why people eat redcurrants and raspberries even though I hate them myself (it’s the texture I hate), but gooseberries? ERRGGGHHHH. They are disgusting, aren’t they? Shrubs and herbaceous plants will take their place.

It’s not that I’ve lost the heart for growing what we eat, I’ve just decided that no matter how easy to grow it is, if we don’t like it then it’s pointless growing it. That goes for the Jerusalem artichokes too – they are going to be replaced by something we actually like to eat!! I never know why they are so expensive to buy in the supermarket, they grow like weeds in our garden. I always think the expensive stuff is the stuff that’s difficult to grow. Not so these. Every year since I planted them, we have had about forty times what we eat, most of which goes in the wheely bin (apart from what I give to friends and colleagues). You can't put them on the compost heap because they just start to grow again and it's terribly difficult to make good compost when there are 12 foot tall plants sticking out of the top of the heap.

Our greenhouse is now ready to be planted up, it’s got its new staging in place and the soil has been enhanced with our home-made compost. The hens have cleared the vegetable beds of weed seeds and parasites so we’re all ready to go.

My next job is to build a fence around the veggie garden so the hens can only get in there when we want them too – no more of my precious spinach for them!! I really need to get moving on it because the planting season starts more or less now. Good job there is no footie for three weeks….well not at my beloved WHL anyway.