Digging companions, worms and sprinting buttercup

The good weather lasted over the weekend - overcast on Saturday but glorious sunshine back again yesterday. Saturday was spent moving compost made over last year onto the fruit and vegetable areas, including the area for the new raised bed, and sorting through plastic pots and plant trays so I can take all excess and broken ones to the recycling bin at the garden centre later this week. Resited the wormery by the shed, which itself is next to the compost bins, to see if it is more successful there.

Sunday saw many more bucket loads of creeping buttercup being shifted concentrating mainly on the area alongside the back hedge. The theory being that the chickens, who have their run under the hedge, scratch up the weeds between the field and the garden and the strip I was clearing will act as a secondary 'weed break' .

Why has it been such a good winter for the buttercup to spread? It feels as if it has been sprinting rather than creeping! Maybe I have left a few main roots behind even though I feel as if I have been thorough.

The weed break is where I managed to get this photo of one of the companions I have whenever I am digging.

I know the garden is split between at least two Robins. The one who proclaims his territory from the Rowan tree at the side of the house has lost his tail feathers somehow, whilst this chap ('chap' being gender neutral here as both male and female have the same colouring) has a full set of tail feathers and is possibly the one who sings from the walnut tree at the back of the house. Both seeing and hearing a Robin sing reminds me of the film of The Secret Garden. Delightful!

I did, however, rescue as many of the worms as I could during the compost moving process to put into the wormery prior to the Robin(s) guzzling them all.