OK, so maybe that's more than a slight exaggeration...

After resembling a builders yard for several months whilst our still-not-quite-finished extension was nearly-but-not-quite being finished, our small plot of garden has started looking up - mainly because all the piles of rubble, ladders, scaffold, boards and general paraphenalia that were strewn across it have been removed, and a nice new green and mostly weed free lawn has been laid.

In order to make the rest of the garden match up, I've spent a good few hours over the bank holiday weekend taking the garden in hand.   Now I'm not the world's most patient or competent gardener, but I can use secateurs and can dig out weeds with the best of them, so I embarked on a program of cutting back the ivy that pretends to be a hedge, removing all the weeds and sundry from the raised beds and generally filling the green waste wheely bin we have from the council.

On top of that, I also harvested our second crop of home produced compost.  As its been pretty difficult getting across the garden whilst the building has been going on (seemingly without end ) we've not been adding to the compost since last summer, and so the bin has had a chance to work its magic and has produced a rather decent looking pile of non-smelly, well rotted and chock full of worms compost that I have dug into the existing soil.

Now as I am definitely in the category of occasional gardener - you'll notice I don't list it as one of my interests, I decided that low maintenance gardening is the way of the future, and after watching Gardener's World on Friday for some inspiration (I know, sad but true ), I hit B&Q with a vengence on Saturday. I bought some weed prevention membrane to cover up my newly tilled soil, some chipped bark to weigh down the membrane, and to try and stop the cats crapping there, and also cover it up with something vaguely more appealing, plus some plants, seeds, potting compost and a growbag.  And a hose.

So now the garden is tidy, free of obvious weeds, and has carrots, tomatoes, mixed lettuce, sunflowers sown with the idea that it'll serve not only as a resonable place to sit with the odd summer beer, but also to provide the occasional vegetable too, without much more effort needed than pointing the hose at it on occasion...and judging by the queue to get into B&Q car park on Monday morning it wasn't just me who had decided that gardening is the new cool thing to do.

Or maybe its just me trying to justify being an old fart