A couple of firsts

As the title suggests, a couple of firsts today.

First time this year I’ve had breakfast and lunch out on the deck. Bit nippy for the former as the sun hadn’t reached the house yet, but I wasn’t short of entertainment, thanks to Woody Woodpecker.

Being on the deck also gives me an extended opportunity to admire the flowers on one of the rhododendrons.

This one did actually produce some flowers the year I planted it and the other rhodo. My recollection was that the flowers had been a pale pink, not this gorgeous shocking pink. I mention this to Rhodo Dave who once again points out the advantages of actually feeding plants. Okay, point taken.

Down to the garden after breakfast. I am thrilled to see that, despite my ongoing battle with Stella to prevent her using the raised bed as a litter box, the peas are sprouting nicely. I was going to plant some French beans (my first attempt to grow them), but when I look at the instructions on the back of the seed packet they say do not plant until late May. Bolded, just like that. All righty. Plant beans later.

I am also going to attempt to grow kale this year for the first time. (What with everyone assuring me it grows like weeds. We’ll see.) Peel back some of the black bed lining fabric, plant a row of kale seeds then set about jury rigging a way of preventing Stella digging up all the seeds whilst taking a dump.

Yes, that is indeed a strip of chicken wire weighed down over the kale seeds. Let’s hope it does the job.

Oh, and FYI, there is definitely rocket sprouting in the two blue pots at the end of the bed. (Sorry, even after all this time back, I just can’t think of it as arugula.) I think there may be some lettuce about to sprout in the third pot, but it might be a hallucination. Or just wishful thinking.

The apple tree has produced some blossom, but only on one branch and it would be the bloody golden delicious branch – the apple that interests me least. Oh, well.

An hour or so tidying up twigs and pine cones and pine needles, then back up to the house for lunch. Happily the sun is now on the deck.

Have lunch then head back to the garden with a cuppa and the latest New Yorker. Have the year’s first proper stretch-out-and-read on the garden swing. And I am reminded why it is possible in the summer (unlike the winter) to finish one week’s copy of the magazine before the next one arrives: Stretching out and swinging in the sun with Stella and something good to read is just simply heaven.