KW-08 A surprise mow

and a lot of wind

Of the 5.5 hectares of the barracks, about 1.5 of them is under buildings and roads and garages and the like. Another one and a half are woodland, and a further hectare is swamp. I have plans for the swamp, but that’s a very long term goal involving rotting wood and mycelium cultures.

The final 1.5ha is mostly wild grasses. I’ve already said somewhere that I am going to dedicate this year in the garden to the potager and to try not to distract myself with any new super projects, but I do want to tame the grass this year.

I didn’t expect to be able to start the mega-mowing project in the second week of February. But yes, after a week of 100kph winds which dried everything out and blew a 4m high metal door clean out of it’s brick surround, yesterday was mowing weather. The piggies got some grass for the first time this year, and I spent a while cleaning up the soft fruit beds. I transplanted the gooseberries, cleaned up the asparagus and mowed the entire space around them. It looks great.

That is, it looked great yesterday. Today, it’s all under snow again. I’m so cold I can hardly type. I don’t want to hope for the warm weather too soon, because we have at least another month and that will just get annoying. But seriously, I have had enough of winter.

the overwintered broad beans probably won’t make it. So here are 60 more.

This week:

• tidy up some more of the soft fruit beds

• figure out how much work it will be to create the kitchen herb garden exactly where I want it

• sow all the first seeds - tomatoes, aubergines, capsicums

• the kitchen (progress was made this week!) (the bricks are finally dry)

• finish the Maltisch for the Malort

See you all again next week

The Pirate Ben x