In a three hour visit – the first multipurpose visit of the year – I cut down everything that had been left standing since the autumn, including cutting back the big verbenas. Buckets and buckets of dry stems have gone into both compost bins. Going round the beds I was able to see just how much grass has taken over. That’s going to be super fun to try and dig up. Various clumps have also grown right in the middle of shrubs.

I sprinkled some Miracle Gro under the fruit trees, but haven’t dug it in yet. Maybe a scrabbling blackbird will do that for me. I also dug up the mutant radish that had been left to guard the plot over the winter. It was in one of the uncovered beds and that soil was still a bit too wet for me to want to think about doing any digging in it. I didn’t get around to seeing what the covered soil is like for digging though.

Two of the three thymes are past it and the lavenders by the shed and apple tree are done. Three little lavenders under plum that came from plugs don’t look particularly healthy and could probably benefit from being closer to look a little more impressive. Two similar ones are either side of the elder too.

The back ledge is covered in nigella seedlings (and weeds). There are also verbena seedlings all over the place, some of which will be kept and moved into better places, but some need to be considered to be weeds. There’s a lot of grass and dove’s foot geranium in the front bed, which should reveal a lot of space once I’ve heaved them out. There’s also an annoying lump of grass in the bottom of the first verbena.

Indoors all my seed ordering is almost done, though I’ve not sorted exactly which beds will house what – and therefore how much of each plant is needed. Highly irregular behaviour on my part.