The Moving Pile...

Its been a busy and constructive weekend, we've dug down and discovered worms at work, lots of nice mulched soil, so the moving of the compost pile must begin... and the pile is rather large, so I started today.
Ive done about a quarter of it, and have put the nice thick mulch back into the smaller plots and topping up some new beds.
Ive got garlic just starting to sprout through, so Ive put some new mulched soil on top of it, and the yams and potatoes got some too...
The salad bed is finally starting to look like a garden, not a mud pie, so thats good! The lettuces are popping through and Im noting the different varieties as they grow and colour up, their leaves being distinctive, their forms too. We have a dark red oakleaf which is different this year, but it looks great against the greens of the other lettuces. I just hope we can get some seed from them too.

Ive got herbs planted everywhere this year, I split the thyme, sage and rosemary, but also marjoram, chives and coriander is interspersed with pyrethrum and borage, marigold, calendula, poppy and lavender. It will be a bees paradise once the monarda and the echinacea come out!

Someone wonderful gave me some Soldiers poppies for my birthday in July. They are red, and will look good amongst the taller red opium poppies. I have orange and white poppies too, somewhere, if they are going to self-seed from last year. I wonder if the nasturtium seeds will sprout, theyre usually pretty good at self-seeding though?

We have some purple ake-ake and griselinia to replace some of the privacy screen down the fence line now that the big beech tree has gone. It has left a huge hole in the skyline, being a very large tree, and a massive pile of wood (which Ive now cut and stacked!) Ive been told that the tap root had snapped after the succession of earthquakes, so it  had died and was rotting. The limbs snapped off with each windy night, so it made good sense to cut it down so it didnt fall completely. A big job, complete with cherry picker and large chainsaw!

Another  new garden addition is the pretty red-pink pineapple sage, it smells awesome when its brushed by, and then theres lemon balm and catnip which also smell great...
I have a couple of black cats who find the cat-nip hard to go by without having a drool...
This afternoon one in particular hung his head over it, whispering sweet-nothings as he lolled into a heap at the bottom of the plant - Zander finds it very hard to go by the garden without slipping into a trance at the altar of Catnip!

 Hoping we can keep the rain at bay so I can get this pile shifted and the chicken coop can be fitted into  place. That then gives me time to get some chicken greens sown so they ll have their own patch to scratch over.
New apple trees went in, a couple more blueberries put in, and a couple of red currants planted too, now the berry farm is growing nicely!!

Spring is almost here, its just got its raincoat on still.
Take care
EB
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