15/1/24 - Blue Monday? No, not at all.

The third Monday in January is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, but actually it’s been a wonderful day. This is the first day I’ve spent properly in the garden for absolutely months. It really shows. The vegetable garden, usually organised and ready, looks weedy and dishevelled.

So today I set about tidying up in preparation for the new growing season. There are four arches. They were cheap as chips and I didn’t expect them to last more than one season, but they’ve been up for six year, so now’s the time to replace them. Or maybe I’ll go for a redesign and not put them in the same place. Anyway, I started to dismantle them once I’d removed all the dried up beans from last year.

I spent a bit of time thinking about how I might change things this year. That’s always easier with a coffee and the dogs as advisers.

On pulling up the runner beans I noticed that they had large tuberous roots. I’ve never noticed that before. I’m hoping they have tons of stored energy as they’re in the compost bin now.

I worked for about five hours and it felt really good to be back in harness. Fingers crossed for similar weather tomorrow. Makes it all feel better.

In other news, the first of the salad has germinated in the greenhouse, on the hotbed which continues to run at around 60℃. And, even bigger news. Two of the Maran hens are laying again after their wintry rest. I have started adding linseed (flax) to their feed as I read that it produces eggs that are high in Omega 3.

First sighting of germinated mesclun.