In preparation for Spring.....

Well today IS the 1st March! Though there is still snow on the Hoy and Orphir hills, and snow showers remind us that Winter is not yet done. Icy sleet is bouncing off the window as I type. However to cheer myself up I have been making preparations for the garden this year. Though they have been "theoretical" ones as I "did something" to my back at the end of last week and spent most of the weekend trying to find a comfortable position to ease the pain -failing miserably. However pain has now departed and I can think coherently again!

Today was a busy day on the island as we completed our "First Responder" training and have been issued with our kit, and reflective jackets. If we all wear those the folk on the Mainland will be able to track wherever we are - the jackets are so bright! But it was an excellent day of training which was delivered in great style by our trainer from the Scottish Ambulance Service in Kirkwall. So we now have 13 First Responders on the island - that's half the population! Let's hope we don't get any call outs...... (you can read more about this here).

So, anyway, back to talking of the garden - last year I used seaweed as fertiliser and it worked really well. I dug it into the ground, but was a bit nervous of doing that this year (see above) plus now the whole garden is complete that would be a big task. But on "Countryfile" a few weeks ago, the programme was in Jersey in the Channel Islands, and there the farmers just spread the seaweed on the field and let it rot down, with all the goodness going into the ground during the process. So that's the plan this year. Anyway, at the weekend, a neighbour kindly gathered the seaweed into the bucket of a tractor and deposited it in my garden ready for spreading.

So far it's gone from here:

To here:


Hopefully next week it can start to be spread along the vegetable border!

Note: Sunrise was at 0709 today (0646 in London) and sunset was at 1741 (1740 in London). Woohooo - the days are getting longer!