Blue sky day and bulbs

A beautiful blue sky day at Houghton today and early in the morning you could still see the moon up there. I did some weeding and hoeing around the garden ending up at the Peacock garden deadheading Marigolds and weeding mainly Euphorbia Petty Spurge, which is everywhere.

Later I was asked to check through and clean the Hyacinth bulbs ready for Spring bedding. Three big bags of different colours and each bulb was checked for mould/damage/disease. I managed to take some pictures today as I have been away for a week and the garden has gone crackers. Our veg plot has come on a lot, the purple French Beans look pretty and the Beets are almost ready. Our Brassicas have been munched to death by caterpillars unfortunately, so they had to go.

Andrew has planted another herb bed with natural dye plants and that looks great. The Pumpkins are enormous and the lettuces grown in the Hydroponicum have popped up looking like little pots of curly hair!

Great to see things moving on.

Welcome to Mole School

I haven't been to Houghton for a week and it was lovely to be back for the peace and quiet! I was asked to divide Irises today from what is to be developed as a new herb bed. So the technical term for my work is Vegetative Propagation by Rhizomatous Division, ahem. The Irises need to be lifted from the ground, divided into single Rhizomes and the dead leaves cut off, and the existing green leaf cut into a fan shape to encourage fan shaped growth. I then washed them all to clean the old soil off, then took them off to the potting shed. Each Rhizome had about 4 or 5 "nodules" each one depicting a years growth. These nodules can be cut and each one planted to create a new plant. I think I potted about 100 and some were put for sale outside the tearooms. They are funny looking alien things that look like a little creature with roots for legs. That or pieces of root ginger with tentacles!

A lovely quiet, satisfying job with the wind rustling in the trees. I love being outdoors at work! It is so relaxing even if the job is a heavy one.

I then did some pricking out of our sadly largely unsuccessful seed sowing of Forget-me-nots (a misunderstanding with the mist unit drowning the seeds) and it was time for Mole School.

Andrew has been to Mole School (He is a registered Traditional Mole Catcher) and so off we went down to the river to put traps out near the molehills. The fun of countryside pursuits! First one needs to determine where the Mole has been tunnelling and then lift a clod of soil to carefully (!) place the trap in and then cover it over. We shall see what tomorrow brings..........

Apples and pears

Another week at Houghton and the fruit is beginning to fall from the many heritage Apple and Pear trees in the walled garden. One of my tasks was to clear the fallen fruit to prevent wasps coming and the rotting fruit getting in the way. Three or four barrow loads and plenty more to do.

I have also been helping Andrew with hoeing and weeding all the beds around the garden and feeding the soil to try and get some more flowers for the late summer.

Andrew is cracking on with clearing the remainder of the plot for the herb garden and it is looking good. The newly planted areas look beautiful with all the bees and butterflies buzzing around. The Marigolds yellows and oranges are standing out now amongst some fantastic looking Gourds, Swan neck and Yugoslavian Fingers.

Our veg plot is doing OK, it has come a long way in a few weeks from bare soil, I think we should get a fair few Beets and Tomatoes looking at it.

I was lucky enough to have a house tour today and got to see the view of the river from the house which was very lovely. A different perspective on the garden. A beautiful place to be and the location makes the weeding an easier task to carry out!