Weeding.

It's been another very pleasant day, not quite as sunny as yesterday but still a good day to be outside. Today I did some weeding in the golden marjoram bed. It was a bigger job than I originally thought as I kept finding strands of speedwell winding their way through the marjoram. It was very satisfying when I was able to prise out the long roots of the yarrow. It's one of those plants with a long tap root (up to 6") which have a fat bit at the end. Failure to get the whole thing out means it will grow back again but I wasn't going to dig up the whole bed. Hopefully it will take a long time for all the ones that broke when I pulled them to appear back at the surface. While I worked I got to thinking about the interesting common names of some of the weeds that grow in and around the garden; speedwell, ivy leaved toadflax, pineapple weed, scarlet pimpernel, cat's ears, dog violets, ramsons aka stinking lily and many others. They sound so very bucolic to me or maybe that was just because with not a sound from out neighbours it felt like a very sleepy Sunday afternoon.

Spring leaves are slowly creeping their way up the smaller of the beech trees and have reached about a third of the way up. No leaves yet on the big beech tree.