First month - the frost

I am just beginning this blogging business, but I have certainly been a very rubbish gardener for a long long time. Perhaps I can add the title of itenerant blogger to my list of labels.

Just now, there is a hard frost, the ground is frozen and I can do nothing, even if I wanted to.

The thing I like about being a lazy (rubbish) gardener is that nature actually rewards me for my idleness. I get huge fat toads under things that need to be cleared. Last year( or was it the year before?) we had a mamma hedgehog and four little hedgehogs living under some ground cover in the front garden that I really should have moved. The little hedgehogs were SO cute. Sadly, we peeked at them once too often and they ambled out of the garden and off to somewhere more private. The hens have even hatched out batches of chicks in the herbacious borders. They certainly couldn't have done that if they were cleared .

Sadly, the hens must keep inside the chicken run now. We lost way too many to the fox and the road. I will let them out from time to time. They can usually be out for two days in a row before The Man of The Place starts to complain about the chicken droppings.

The pond is getting over full of duck weed and flag iris but the newts that moved in seem to love it there. Just now the pond is getting ready to accept this year's wave of toad spawn. Last year it was so full of specky jelly frog spawn that I swear we could have walked across the top of it all.

Here is a list of stuff I must do in the garden:
1. post order for seeds
2. spread dirt pile evenly across the vegetable plot and re-cover
3. replace broken panes of glass in small greenhouse
4. move strawberry bed into the light
5. buy a new lawnmower
6. prune the rest of the roses and spray them
7. plant the rhubarb in a nice spot
8. paint the hen house
9. fix the broken hinge on hen house door
10. tidy up the greenhouses and wash the glass

The only stuff on that list that I am able to do now is the stuff where I have to spend money. Who has money in January? We spent it all over Christmas.