Lazy Bob.

Hello everyone, I had a good day today. I started off by doing some potting up because it was raining or at least it was to wet to make a start on the mowing. I start potting on some cuttings and then there were some pot plants in need of climbing the potting up ladder and to finish off I saw this Rosemary plant I had raised from a seedling and I suddenly got the urge to try and train it as a standard. I can’t recall having seen one as a standard although if it can be done no doubt it has and if it can’t be done for some reason then I guess I’m wasting my time trying.

The Rosemary, it may appear to be just a stick but I dream of a great future for it!

As things had dried up by tea break I cut the main lawn and all the public lawns. Mowing the lawns always seems to be a bit of a challenge one way or another, (which is what I enjoy), usually because it’s such a close call trying to get it all done in the day, last week of course there was the tremendous heat to contend with, wrestling with big bertha on the main lawn had me sweating cobs as she is definitely a heavy metal kinda girl. This week the challenge was to get done what I had to do before the next shower brought things to a halt. I got the main lawn cut but ended up finishing the courtyard with the rain bouncing down. Thankfully it was now time for lunch so I was able to get a change of shirt. This afternoon I spend sitting out in the sun in the deck chair in the potting shed yard listening to music picking off black currants.

I always used to pick them straight off the bush but someone told me you can prune off the shoots with the currants on and pick them that way. I was a bit dubious at first, it seemed too easy but it seems to work, the fact that I was picking off berries today proves it as I did the same thing last year, and I’m not boasting when I say this but since I came here the currant bushes have improved no end so I must be doing something right. Of course you have to be sensible, I don’t wade in hacking the whole bush down, I do prune back to a new shoot and all the usual stuff. If I remember right the currants are produced on new shoots put up for the base of the plant so removing the old wood with the berries on encourages the new shoot so I think that’s basically how it works. Anyway I enjoyed my lazy afternoon in the sun. By the way red and white currants grow different to black currants so don’t try this with either of them or you would probably have no fruit next year.