A Rare Delight

Yesterday we made the most of that rare delight, a beautiful February day. Despite a frost it was ideal planting conditions for bare roots as the sun quickly penetrated the soil which for once wasn't soggy. We started the renovation of the soft fruit garden which we will extend to hold the vegetables and eventually net against the rabbits. To begin with the new beech hedge had to be installed, this took all morning and extended all the way down to the wall at the far end of the picture, it will help to shelter the produce and make more of a feature of what had become pretty weed infested rows of autumn raspberries. These old canes have been weed killed and in the afternoon we planted sixty new ones at the bottom end of the patch, keeping all the soft fruit together whilst opening up a large new area for root crops. Just when I thought the day was going rather well we moved onto gooseberry pruning for the last hour, my most hated task in the garden due to those ghastly thorns, but even that task wasn't so bad on such a glorious day.

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden"
Thomas Jefferson