Digging (or weeding) For Victory
You may remember how last week Beechgrove Potting Shed expert Nicola Singleton gave me a list of jobs to get on with to get the garden ready for spring. On Monday I decided it was high time I got stuck in if I had any chance of getting everything done. The weather was perfect, blue skies and sunshine, positively balmy, and I couldn't wait to get outside. It was my first 'footer' about the garden this year and it felt fabulous. Once I started tugging at the faded perennials (which admittedly should have been cleared at the end of autumn!) cutting back the straggly evergreens and raking up all the dead leaves there was no stopping me, I was a woman on a mission and ready for action; heaven help any weed that dared get in my way.
Last Sunday was the first programme of the New Year, and David Mitchell from the said this was the perfect time to plan your garden for the forthcoming year. And once I started with the initial clearing I could see what David was talking about. With everything looking a bit bare and bedraggled, it's easy to see where you would like a bit of colour, visualise the perfect spot for that fruit tree, or just plan that magnificent garden you've always dreamed of. It doesn't matter if it never really makes fruition - part of the fun is in the fantasy.
For my own part I've decided on a gothic wonderland, with a prehistoric rockery bursting with exotic plants and colour. In reality my garden does have to incorporate a potting shed, two compost bins, a manky grey council wheelie bin, a washing line, 2 cats and a husband that can't stop chopping things down, so I'm guessing it probably won't match the fabulous specimen I have in my head. But I digress - back to the job in hand, which is the clearing and the weeding. As I say, I got most of the initial jobs done after just a couple of hours, but was horrified at how exhausted I felt and had to take a rest!
Gardening is a brilliant way to get fit, stay active and it can also help in the fight against depression. But be warned of the dangers! Did you know that GP surgeries and A&E are bursting at the seams this time of year with over enthusiastic gardeners doing too much too soon! Getting stuck in after months of doing nothing more energetic than flicking through a seed catalogue is the horticultural equivalent of running a marathon wearing your carpet slippers. Do a bit of limbering up beforehand, gently stretches and the like, and for goodness sake don't start lugging about pots and tubs that would need a cart-horse to shift. A few wee wise precautions will stave off sore backs, pulled muscles and aches and pains. And I would like to add that rumours that I escaped with nothing more than a broken finger-nail are greatly exaggerated.
Alas the balmy spring weather we enjoyed last weekend was sadly not to last. Tuesday saw driving rain, snow and sleet, followed later in the week by gale force winds of up to 70mph! But the sun won't be long in coming back. I'm sure of that. As my Mum was fond of telling me, the sun always shines - it's just that we can't always see it beneath the clouds!
This Sunday Jim McCall and Nicola Singleton join me in the Potting Shed. Nicola will be giving top-tips on plug plants, and Jim will give much needed advice on reviving lawns. I can't wait for that as my patch of green has most certainly developed some sort of male-pattern baldness.
Look forward to speaking to you all soon.
Take care.
Theresa
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