It’s June. In my part of Scotland this means that I go to sleep in the daylight and I wake up in the daylight too. I love this time of the year. It does take some adjusting to, this bright sky not darkening until about 1am and becoming searingly bright again by 5am. But, it also means that I feel hopeful, bright and happy because I get a lot done and the world just looks beautiful in the sunshine. I’ve never liked sleeping with the curtains drawn or the blinds closed. Truly, waking with the sun is what tends to happen and during the summer this means I’m usually awake before 4am. Of course, winter time is a totally different story, but we won’t talk about Scottish winter gloom at the moment!
These days I’ve been packing a lot into the waking part of my near-24 hours of sunshine. A routine hasn’t quite set in yet, though. Some days I forget to do things in the most efficient order – like watering the roses or potatoes at 4am. Every night I seem to have this brilliant idea that as soon as I wake up I’ll put on some shoes and run outside to turn on the spot sprinkler. It never happens. I did do it once at 5am though, while I was getting reading for my run. I consider that a little victory.
Yesterday, however, I had garden watering excitements! After much deliberation about what product to test out, my amazon package containing my soaker hose had arrived!
You may recall that I have quite a large garden. It is more than a few steps from the veg patches in the back to the front garden and the rose hedge to the very extreme of the front. The trek consists of walking down a hill, further down some steps to the back of the house, around the house, through a wooden gate, past the garden shed, across the lawn, down the rockery steps and along the front. If I had to put my hoses end to end along this trek I’d say it was around a 75m walk. That’s no joke when you’re dragging your only hose and spot sprinkler around with you. We only have one outdoor garden tap so garden watering (especially the potatoes, which are at the very limit of the hose’s reach) has been the bane of my existence every summer.
But I now have a soaker hose! HOORAYYY!!!!
I only bought a 25m length hose because I wasn’t sure how it would work, and I didn’t want to blow a huge amount of money on a sprinkler system that would be finicky. The reviews on Amazon can be tricky to wade through, but this particular soaker hose seemed to be a good buy. Of course, it was also helped by the fact that the irrigation system that I really had wanted sold out everywhere. Apparently as soon as warm weather threatens, everybody in the UK goes out and buys every single type of irrigation system in the shops!
Anyway, as soon as it was unpacked the soaker hose got trekked out to the tap and manhandled into submission along my desperately dry front of house flower bed. You know, the one containing my broom plant (among other shrubs), azalea, calendulas, lilies and tulips. It covered the length of that bed, crossed across the path to the rockery at one side of the driveway and even got to the first holly plant at the edge of the boundary hedge at the front of the house.
It’s a thick, not-particularly-pliable hose, so it’s not the most delightful thing to see in your flower bed, but still I was ecstatic! I turned the tap on and saw the droplets spring out. Happily I turned to other duties, determined to gleefully ignore these sections of the garden for at least an hour and a half, relieved at the fact that I didn’t need to uproot a spot sprinkler every half hour to move it to a slightly different location!
What utter bliss!
Amazon is getting too much of my money this month. I’ve just ordered the extension to the soaker hose, along with two types of application of selective lawn weed killer. The dandelions and dock weeds are becoming too prevalent to use any kitchen remedies like vinegar etc. I do live in a very windy, countryside location which puts me at a disadvantage immediately. It doesn’t matter how vigilant I am in the garden, it’s always a losing battle fighting these gusts of invading organisms coming in from the surrounding fields and pastures. I’ve also ordered a tap splitter so I can hook up the two hoses at the same time and finally do away with most of the garden watering drama. So you see, all my purchases were necessary (except the two books that somehow found their way into the checkout selection, ahem!) but still, I’ve ordered more on Amazon within the last few days than I have in the last few months combined! The garden really takes a lot out of you in terms of upkeep, but it does bring many rewards as well.
I have done things in the garden since my AWOL stories (remember the list?), and I did mean to start telling you about them in this post but maybe I’d better save that for another day. I did finally finish reading the Witcher, book 1 though. Sure it was only a year and a bit after buying it, but I just couldn’t get past the first few pages for a long while. Sometimes the mood just has to hit you right!
Anyway, stay with me and watch this space! More updates coming soon!
Garden adventures! Am only now discovering that it does indeed take a lot. We’ve paved our yard, but got potted plants as we missed seeing greenery all around. Had to call in a plant expert to revive our ficus and pine, and they’re coming along nicely now.
Gardening really is a labour of love! Most times I think that potted plants are the trickiest to handle, outdoors. I use water saving gel for pots – crystals that you mix with the potting soil – and they absorb a lot of water and slowly release. I’m glad your plants have recovered!