Creative thinking

Today we were joined by a friend who had offered to help us in the old field - a very good and enthusiastic friend, we should add, who gave of his labour for the cost of a homemade lunch! We decided to concentrate on a small area where there was a slight depression in the ground, where there was potential to create a small garden area and where we had previously dug a tiny part and planted some lilies.

We got digging, he with a sturdy spade and we with more delicate fork. It was interesting to note the differing approaches to removing the variety of unwanted vegetation (bramble, nettle, thistle, etc, etc). Brute force and soil turning was his, whereas we attempted to extract as many rootlets as possible. His method certainly covered a larger area much quicker than ours! Then, having dug the area, we edged the depression with some of our recently obtained stones in a fairly rough and ready way. It is but a start, though there's certainly potential here and it's a nice open and sunny spot so we think the lilies will like it.