keeping them off- sort of

Yesterday's post nicely highlighted the lack of weeding through the spot I focused on, so I thought I'd give a morning to doing just that. One of the dangers of weeding, of course, is that one then has to defend one's freshly turned soil from opportunists

the chaps, who think this is just a matter of a little local housekeeping by the mistress to ensure their latrine needs are attended to!

and our visitors, who are quite sure that any freshly dug soil must contain more in the way of worms, slugs and grubs than anywhere else in the garden (except the lawn of course)

So, when all has been loosened up, and surface and deep rooting weeds have been eradicated, and a lovely blanket of soil improver and mulch has been laid over the top to keep moisture in, some protection is needed.

Whether those canes have a hope against a ravaging badger is yet to be discovered!

it looks a small space to have tilled, but that is about my limit in a couple of hours, the rest will be finished when I have recovered my strength!

At least now you can see there really are hellebores and a fern here. The gloom is down to some gathering clouds which have arrived for the afternoon, promising a goodly amount of rain to sink down through the loose texture, rather than simply running off the packed earth. How lovely.