Get your garden summer ready in 3 easy steps

Summer is nearly here. However, before you uncover your barbeque or dust off your sun loungers, it’s likely you’ll need to give your garden some TLC. To ensure it's looking its best for when the warmer weather hopefully arrives, here are three steps you should follow.

1. Add some lights

During the summer months, the warmer nights mean that you’re able to enjoy your garden right up until sundown. If you’re keen to make the most of the nicer evenings, you could add some illuminations to your garden setup. As lighting specialists The Lighting Superstore point out, outdoor lighting gives you the opportunity to extend your time spent outside. You could choose to illuminate your walkways with solar-powered spikes or drape a string of fairy lights along your fencing. There are a whole host of ways you can incorporate some extra light into your backyard to ensure it’s summer ready. 

2. Tidy your lawn

Now the cooler months should be out of the way, it's time to sort out your grass. If It's looking dry, untidy and generally a little worse for wear, now is the time to make improvements. Firstly, remove any leaves that may have collected over the winter. Next, you should give your turf a much needed trim with a lawn mower, not forgetting to tidy up the edges too.

If your grass is looking particularly sparse, you could put some lawn food down to give it a helping hand. Generally though you shouldn't need to water it regularly but after its first few cuts it should start to look lush and full of life.

3. Prep your patio

So you have somewhere to sit and enjoy the warmer weather, you'll need to prepare your patio. If you have a paved area, you might want to clean the paving slabs. Sometimes elbow grease is the only way and scrubbing or brushing this area of your garden will get rid of any dirt and grime which has built up over the winter. Once it's done it'll make it the ideal setting for you and your family to bask in the sun and dine al fresco. If you have decking, you might want to give the wooden panels a fresh lick of paint and rid the surface of any moss or weeds that have started to grow over it. 

With some time and effort you shouldn’t struggle to get your garden in tip-top shape for summer.

This is a collaborative post with The Lighting Superstore

Some broad bean love and weeding...

There's not a huge amount going on on our allotment right now, but the one thing we have plenty of - apart from weeds - are broad bean flowers. And this weekend it struck me just how pretty they are.

We had some work to do though, as this was how they looked at the weekend.  You can just about spot the broad beans amongst the weeds. Whoops!

But after an hour's weeding, it was looking more respectable.  And I'm hoping that we'll be rewarded with plenty of broad beans quite soon.

But let's be honest weeding is pretty boring. So it wasn't long before MOH and I were comparing the roots of the weeds we pulled up. And in true competitive spirit we saved what we thought were our longest ones for the weed-off. 

But by the time we'd measured the contenders we'd forgotten which belonged to whom. Oh well, it made the weeding go slightly quicker, and I suspect it won't be the last time we'll be weeding this section either.

Elsewhere on the plot

The Purple Sprouting Broccoli has gone to seed, but still looks very pretty. I know I should be composting it and that's on the list for our next visit but until then I'm enjoying the vivid purples and the bright yellow flowers, and both colours represented in the decaying leaves.

The self-seeded artichoke which I thought was gone, has sprung back into life. It's already four foot tall so it looks like it'll be spending another season under the crab apple tree. Maybe this year I'll remember to move it into a proper bed.

Our potatoes are in too (and we did cover them up, this was a in-progress shot). 

And remember the bed we cut the edges for a while back, well the edges are still where we left them, but there's still a lot more digging to do.  This bed will eventually have some more strawberries from the garden in and my garden rhubarb will be joining the rhubarb I inherited.

Ah, it feels good to be able to show the progress we've made in the past week or so. And I'm looking forward to some evenings over there too, hopefully we'll create enough space to plant all the seeds I've sown.  I've a big job potting those on this weekend, and I can't wait!

Nothing will come of Nothing

So by now I expect you'll already know that this weekend we're celebrating the Shakespeare's 400th anniversary. That's quite a milestone isn't it? To celebrate Viking, the stationery suppliers asked if I'd create something with a favourite Shakespeare quote.

But where to start?

There are so many well known Shakespeare quotes - even Prince Charles was getting in on the act today - but which one would I choose. I decided to steer clear of the obvious ones and was surprised just how much influence Shakespeare has had on our language.

• Knock, knock! Who's there?

• Good riddance

• Heart of gold

• Baited breath

• Dead as a doornail

• The world is my oyster

• Off with his head

• What's done is done

• Vanish into thin air

• Too much of a good thing

Yes all of these are derived, and attributed to Shakespeare and these aren't all of them either. You'd be surprised, well I was anyway.

So which quote would I choose? Here's some of the letters...

Did you guess?

I choose Nothing will come of nothing from King Lear.  

I cut the two nothing's using my die cutter and decided to try my hand at calligraphy for the rest of the quote.

Realising it's been a (long) while since I've done this - I hope to share more of one of my early attempts soon - I decided to dig out an old book titled "Good Handwriting & how to acquire it" which I picked up a few years ago for £4 in a charity shop.  I've no idea if it's worth anything - four pounds or anything more - but it's a beautiful book.

And having swotted up on the Centaur font I was ready to go. With my quill - everyone has one right? - I set about adding some text to my parchment background. Well parchment just seemed the right way to go...

And there you have it.

"Nothing will come of nothing."

And you know what? It's perfect for my once empty frame in the "spare" pigeon shelves which have found a home in my craft-room-cum-study!

In case you're wondering about my quote...

It means that you will gain nothing if you invest nothing. And that's something I totally believe in, (sadly) I'm not the type of person where everything comes easy. Where and when I have success there's hard work behind it, I truly believe that nothing worthwhile is ever handed to you on a plate, it's something you have to work for and on to make the best of.

In King Lear, he is telling his daughter Cordelia that she will gain no favors from him if she does not make elaborate speeches saying she loves him.  I'll admit I'm not familiar with the whole story, but this quote spoke to me.  I do remember though, studying Macbeth and Henry IV part 4 at senior school with a very enthusiastic English teacher.

Do you have a favourite Shakespeare quote? Let me know in the comments.

This is a collaborative post with Viking, the stationery suppliers to celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare but all opinions are my own