Groundworks continue

Finished paths (or should I be less grand and say 'filled in the gaps'?) around my raised bed this weekend.  Next phase is to fill it with the tulips I've just had delivered from Parkers Wholesale (http://www.dutchbulbs.co.uk/).  This could be a dangerously addictive new find of a website!

Nicked the idea of paviours and bricks from my sister's garden - very pleased with my new addition. It's also a great way of using up just a few of the blue bricks which I dug up when putting down slabs to unify/level the paved area around the side of the house.

So many jobs still to do - and the days are getting shorter...

Pricked out my dianthus 'Sooty' seedlings in the greenhouse today, so hopefully they will overwinter successfully in a cold greenhouse or in the coldframe.

Raised, filled and ready for action.

A sludgy day of wheelbarrowing is now complete and my raised bed sits proudly on what used to be a concrete desert.  Am looking forward to planting it up but will leave it to settle for a a week or so before doing so.  Had fun making a soil, bonemeal and compost layer cake effect when filling it.

Still have enough free topsoil left to create another bed, but have no other space earmarked at present, so the soil heap will just have to wait for spaces to arrive in the border.  I'm sure it can all be used - the soil in the greenhouse border can be renewed for starters - if the wild rocket ever stops providing me with salad that is...

Most of my September sown seeds in the greenhouse are now sprouting, so have a fuzzy little crop of Ammi majus, dianthus 'Sooty' (thanks for the seeds Cheng Jing!)  and hollyhocks are also starting to sprout.  Very excited to see the scabious seeds starting to push through - a scabious was the first containerised plant I ever bought as an adult, so its partially responsible for my gardening obsession...  I have a real soft spot for it in all its wild and cultivated forms.  Roll on next year!!

Don't be tidy - leave your seedheads for the  birds and the frosts... Better than a bald garden, any day.

Sledgehammer wielding maniac

The discussion on the Guardian Gardens forum about building raised beds galvanised me into action yesterday.  Managed to winkle out planks from dad's neatly stacked, and devilishly impenetrable wood salvage pile and sawed them to size ready to make raised beds.

On inspecting the patch where I planned to put them, I decided to have a go at breaking up the concrete area which they'd sit on, just to improve the drainage.  However, once I had a sledgehammer in my hand and even the thickest sections were quaking under its blows, I found myself possessed by a powerful urge to demolish and now have a respectable pile of rubble awaiting more trips to the local recycling centre to get rid of it.  I must have been a peculiar sight in my purple mini skirt and leggings, sporting goggles and belting ten bells out of poured concrete...

My labours mean that my raised beds now can just be one plank high as I can breakup the subsoil, put down a bed of the topsoil I recently inherited and put the frame straight onto that, then fill it with more soil.  24 square feet of flowerbed to the good!  I'm now inspired to keep on going and get all the poured concrete in that area up - it really would be a significant addition to the flower border and also will be much better for water run off if there is less impermeable surfacing in the garden.

A good afternoon's work!