Every hour counts

The last two weeks I have been extremely busy with work and garden club business, in particular getting the garden club seed order processed and delivered, so my apologies for the lack of posts in this time. The seed order was very successful with huge savings being made on seeds and potatoes, just in time for the sowing season. With all this going on it's been hard to find any time for the garden lately, but I did manage to get out there with my six year old son Alec for an hour last weekend - and what an hour it was! We started by pruning back the grape vine at the front of the house, important to get done before the sap starts rising and therefore an urgent job that I really out to have done earlier. We pruned the vine back hard to the main stem, making a makeshift magic wand from the prunings for Alec, who proceeded to make two cars and a spotty grey cat appear from thin air (in his imagination at least)! We then pruned the apple trees in pots at the front at Alec's insistence, not strictly necessary but worth a little re-shaping. Taking our prunings to the back garden we then cut all the old asparagus stalks down to the ground and cleared around them (a big but easy job that we should have done in the autumn) and likewise removed all the old sweetcorn stalks and canes and cleared away the weeds underneath. Finally we pruned the main stem leaders off the tops of the minarette apples and pears. We had a great time together, me cutting and Alec putting all the prunings on the heap and generally getting his hands dirty, and it all took just one hour - but the difference in how the garden looks now is amazing. The scruffy depressing mess of winter is now a neat tidy space just waiting for spring planting and new growth. We now feel inspired to crack on and develop the blank canvas, instead of averting our eyes in shame every time we step out of the house. We could easily have spent that hour in front of the telly, indeed the main reason we went out at all is because Alec had spent too long in front of it already, but grabbing the brief opportunity has made a huge difference to the garden and was the best hour of our day, spent having fun together outdoors. If you only spend one hour a week in the garden you'd be amazed at what you can achieve some times. An hour a day can be little short of miraculous. Don't wait for long bank holiday weekends; grab those precious hours whenever you can, get your kids away from the TV and into their wellies and get out there, and see the differences an hour can make for yourself.