Busy days

I had intended to do more sewing at the end of last week, but the weather forecast was really good, so I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and 10°C+ heat and get on with some work in the garden.

First of all I had this lot delivered from the garden centre - 8 x 80 litre bags of composted stable manure.

I weeded all the borders, and then mulched them. I did the front garden one day, and the back the next, making the most of the sunshine. I used 3 bags for the front and another 3 at the back. I'm saving the rest to pot up containers with, although anything left after that will be added to the mulch around the soft fruit. The weeding wasn't too bad as there hasn't been enough warm weather yet for very much to have germinated already.

The cage thing behind me? It covers the birds' ground feeder to protect it from pigeons (of which we have far too many) and squirrels (of which we also have far too many). The bars are far enough apart to allow the smaller birds in to get the food.

After mulching all along this side I realised that the fence really looked untidy and could do with painting with Cuprinal fence stuff. The OH did it when we first moved in, but since then it hasn't been dry enough to do at a time of year when the plants are low enough to actually reach the fence...
As you can see, parts of it had gone rather green.

So I popped to the DIY store and picked up a bucket of Cuprinol and got painting.

It's a definite improvement and should mean that the fence lasts for a lot longer (this isn't our boundary to maintain, as the fence itself belongs to the neighbour's, but I'd rather make sure we're doing our best to maintain it from our side anyway).

I also edged both the lawns with the lawn-edging tool. This is one of those jobs that is much easier with the right tool. The first year I tried to do it with a normal spade and it was horrendous. Much like the year I tried mulching without a wheelbarrow and soon got fed up of heaving buckets of compost around.

And, finally, the OH gave the lawns their first cut of the year. They're looking a bit patchy, but at least they're now the same length!

These crocuses opened up in all the sunshine. Aren't they beautiful?

Anyone else been making the most of the sunshine?