Now bring me that horizon!

For the past few weeks I have mostly been glued to seed catalogues

and gardening magazines, to such an extent that I have enough paper material to fashion myself a large overcoat!

Needless to say, there has been much mental gardening; list making,planning,summer bulb choosing(dahlias mostly),green manure considering.  Wildflower seeds, native grasses,climbers and hedging, rambling roses, pumpkins and rabbit deterrents.  To be honest it's exhausting, since I can't find my 'off' switch.

Vintage seed packets

It's the type of gardening you can do when it is too cold and the ground too hard to get out and do actual gardening. 

Normal behaviour for the time of year, but cranked up to eleven owing to the fact that the Greygirl garden is expanding! (I nearly wrote 'growing' but that would have been cheesy). 

More space equals more planting possibilities - not to mention more dahlias!

From this weekend I will be taking my wellies and wheelbarrow to a plot on the local allotment and start digging.  I know that there's a lot of work to be done before any planting can happen, and the soil needs to warm up a fair bit too.  I read this week that you shouldn't plant anything until you are happy to put your bare bum on the soil. Perhaps 'happy' isn't the right word but you get the meaning. Not the kind of behaviour that would go down well on the allotment, I'm pretty sure.

Suffice to say there is much coffee to be drunk from flasks, fingerless gloves to be knitted and thoughts to be mulled over etc, you can't rush a good thing.

 Luckily for me though, my lovely brother recently gave me a woolly hat :D

I have to put the brakes on from time to time because it's easy to become overwhelmed and then my head will melt.

At times I feel like a bear with a very small brain, one that only has the power equivalent to a 40watt light bulb (that's in old money - new light bulbs aren't like the old ones at all, but that's another bucket of fish).

must get me some of these pants & a pipe!

Whenever I go anywhere now I can't help scanning for useful bits of wood.  I walk ever-hopeful towards skips but they always seem to be full of plasterboard and mould.  Or plastic things.

I would like to build a cold frame for my plot and find some pallets to make a compost bin out of and who knows, attempt some kind of shed!  Old window frames, posts and planks of wood are my idea of treasure right now.

I'll let you know how it goes...

hmmm...

a shed of doors - brilliant!

a two storey shed

cute shed

The good news is that my sets of onions and shallots are planted and I have potted up more garlic.  The cloves I planted in Autumn have plenty of leaves and are looking good :)

All my container plants have been top dressed and mulched.  Shrubs and roses pruned, fruit bushes trimmed.

Jiffy envelopes stuffed with seeds are arriving through the post.  There are so many possibilities and potential plants it's mind-boggling.

Fetch me wellies, I'm off...!