Somebody else's rubbish is my treasure

The weather reports said that today would be nice and dry. So I thought I could get a whole load of stuff done down the plot. Word to the wise. Do not trust the weather reports.

One thing I noticed the moment I drove in. That big pile of wood chip from last week... gone. And yes it was a big pile, but there is none left now. Nor is there any manure left.

Well the first thing I did was start setting out my spuds in the greenhouse. A few of them have got little shoots on them, but they need a little more warmth and more light to get going properly. Also put in a few more onions that were left over from the batch I put in last November.Yes, they'll be maturing later but that's no problem.

Time to cut back the buddleja. Its sort of taken over in it's spot between the water barrels. Even more so as it has fallen over and now falls onto next door's plot. So it needs a damn good cutting back.

Whilst I was then tidying up the plot and pulling out a few weeds I took a look at the Swiss Chard that had grown in the 1st bed for the last two years. Last year there were big stumps in there, and they sprouted into a fine crop of leaves again. I expected this year to be the same. But no. The stumps were almost hollow and fell over as I was weeding the bed.

It would seem that Swiss Chard is a biennial. If I'd have taken the time to read up on it, I would have known this. However it's not a problem.The seeds that it produced last year dropped all over the bed and there are lots of little plants now appearing. So more Chard this year. Woo hoo!

I still had some rubbish that I pulled out from clearing out the fox mound. So I took it round to the waste bin area of the site, and there I saw that somebody had thrown away an old cloche. The metal frame was not much use, but what caught my eye was the fact that the covering was a tough clear polycarbonate. That could certainly be put to use.

My shed has had damaged windows for a while. Yes, at the moment the roof needs doing, but those windows have been broken far longer. So a little measuring and cutting and there are now two new windows in place. Somebody else's waste becomes my new windows.

However no sooner had I finished that than it started getting really cold, and dark clouds loomed. A few spots of rain got me heading into the greenhouse. Just as well as no sooner had I got inside than it started throwing down hail.

I spent the next 5 minutes listening to it bouncing off the greenhouse roof before deciding that I shouldn't have trusted the weather reports and headed for home.