Paddock Update. What Have We Been Up To? « Homemaker Cherry Menlove

Paddock Update. What Have We Been Up To?

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Paddock Update!
What Have We Been Up To?

Well, for starters we have put the raised beds to sleep for the Winter. Robert decided to split our four big beds into eight narrower beds. This sounded like a tragedy when he suggested it because we’d spent so long on them already but he whipped one in to shape in just under an hour and I’m really pleased with the result. Splitting them has given me a small pathway between each bed and it’s always easier to tend to a smaller space.

As we’re not planting anything until next year we’ve decided to work on getting the soil in them as rich as possible. I piled on heaps of organic compost and some manure and raked it in to the top soil already in the bed.

Then I flattened it out a little so that it would not come spilling out over the sides before the soil had a good chance to settle down.

Then I covered the top with a weed guard.

I rolled it out, cut it to length…..

..and placed some large stones on top of the weed barrier.

But this isn’t the end of the story. We are also going to staple some thick plastic sheeting over the top of each bed so that it really has a chance to sweat a little and get ready for planting next Spring.

Good times!

We have also been working on the aesthetics of the paddock. Namely the views that one will have from each part of the vegetable garden.

Standing at the entrance to the garden you will be able to see straight down the path to the other side of the paddock and the vegetable beds will be on either side of the path.

I wanted something to be planted down the other end so that there was something magnificent to see in the distance when entering the Potager.

So Robert dug a big hole while I filled it with lots of organic matter and gave it a good soaking.

In to the big hole we placed a Magnolia tree, one of my absolute favourite trees to have anywhere in the garden but certainly at the bottom of a long path.

I gave the root ball another good soaking….

….and we filled in the rest of the hole. Trying to keep the tree as upright and as straight as possible. This was a few weeks ago and it’s coming along really well indeed. It totally survived the storms of this past weekend which is more than can be said for various other things in the garden. Nothing serious just some staking that has to be done and an arch that needs to go back up.

I’m itching for next Spring when we can begin to plant in earnest and the Magnolia will get the chance to show off.

But first Christmas…..

….ahhh Christmas!

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