Homes for hedgehogs and vegetables

A whole day spent in the garden yesterday, bliss! I’m achy and need a rub down with a copy of Gardener’s World but am very happy that I managed to spend time in our own little ecology centre yesterday…

Friday we went for dinner in the evening with friends which was a lot of fun. Saturday I had to go and get some camping stuff (we’re off to the New Forest at Easter! The missus, me and the dog makes three!). I ended up buying another sleeping bag; two roll mats; a dog tether (don’t ask) and plastic plates. And then Sunday we took the dog up Crystal Palace Park where, as you can imagine, he had a whale of a time. Then we came back to a huge breakfast which we ate in the garden, followed by a day of planting, trying to save our lawn and garden maintenance. I bought my partner some asparagus and a rose called Cambridge Castle (she went to Cambridge University) for her Easter present. I couldn’t exactly hide them for a week so she got them yesterday. And so they got planted with liberal helpings of horse poo.

We’re building a raised vegetable patch (we have clay soil and most veggies prefer good drainage) and we’ve now decided to extend the vegetable patch outward. So yesterday I was treating the wood with preserver, and by the amount I got on myself, I should stay looking 33 for quite a number of years to come…

My partner also sanded the lawn. Our turf never really took for a variety of reasons, so she spent hours spiking the lawn and brushing in sand to improve the drainage. Then we sprinkled lawn seed and gave it a good watering. Hopefully, we should have a decent lawn (or getting that way) within a month or so.

I was going to start building my hedgehog house as well but covered in wood preserver and dirt; I decided to head inside at 6 and soak myself clean in the bath and then made a rather fabulous roast dinner. The organic beef that was left is now in my sandwiches and its touch and go whether I’m going to make it till lunchtime…