Fun with furniture

I really enjoy moving furniture arround, and trying out new layouts. However, my lounge is more or less sorted now, so I’ve been playing the same game in the garden. The garden dining set I bought yesterday arrived early this morning.

As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t sure if it would over-dominate the patio, and so I tried several different arrangements, including placing one of the benches in a different bit of the garden. However, in the end, I decided it looked ok lengthways down by the BBQ area, so that is where it is living.

I mounted the two sets of hoops and insect netting I bought for the two (of four) planters not yet planted up. Currently one is full of soil from my old veg patches, with the occassional weed still appearing, while the other is empty. I plan to transfer some of the weedy soil to the empty planter, so they are both half-full, lay down a thick layer of cardboard, and then top them up with compost. This year I will plant short-rooted veg in those two, and the cardboard should kill off the weeds for good. By next year it will be rotted, and I will be able to use the full depth. I aim to plant cabbages and brocolli in one, and sugar snap peas in the other.

The other two planters already have stuff planted. In the one with broad beans planted up the centre, I added some tumbling cherry tomatoes on one side, and sweet peppers on the other. In the one half filled with garlic, I planted up with assorted salad leaves.

I was pleasantly suprised when planting to find the earth was stil quite moist, even though I haven’t watered recently – the veg troughs seem to be good at retaining water. In the next day or so, I intend to hook up a soaker hose to at least one of the currently empty troughs to see if I can get a reasonable gravity feed from my water butts.