Kale, Weeds and a visit from an old friend

So I was down the plot bright and early this morning. I'd actually been up since about 5am, but I arrived on the plot about 7am. First job was to plant out the Kale. The last Kale we had (a good few years back) was eaten by the pigeons. So this lot I am determined to protect.

I put the netting over one of the troughs. The Tomatoes are not yet big enough to be put outside, so I'll use it for support for the time being.

After they were done, I started attacking some of the weeds and grasses that were infesting the goat paths between the beds. The plot is looking much better these days.

And of course, The Wife's Strawberry Empire is looking pretty good.

I also managed to get a decent photo of a Bumblebee on the Phacelia. (The others were too blurry)

Inside the Greenhouse, we have the remainder of the Courgettes.

And on the other side there are the Tomatoes, a few sweetcorn, a couple of Sunflowers (need to find a home for them soon), Mint and Chillies. Plus a few Beetroot which survived the ravages of the Mouse.

Up on the top shelf, are the rest of the Sweetcorn. They'll have to go out next week I suspect.

Whilst I was packing up to leave, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. Not seen any sight nor sounds of the foxes for a couple of months. But here she is poking her nose in.

Not sure which one this is, as we've kind of lost track of the fox history. But I wish she was around earlier in the year to deal with that mouse. Anyway, good to see her back.

Hard day in the sun

I nearly passed out.

We went down to the plot early as we knew we had a lot of work to do. But even trying to get The Wife out of bed in the morning is quite a struggle. I've always been an early bird though. But we eventually managed to roll up to the plot at about 9am. Surprisingly there were a few others who arrived before us.

Any way I made a finish on getting the remains of the compost sieved out. The bed is now clear of compost. But it still needs a little attention regarding the grass and other detritus that spilled out from the digging.

Meanwhile The Wife was on a mission. She had to improve her Strawberry Empire. So all the little pots of plants that were scattered around the plot were rounded up and forced into trays and bigger pots. And now The Empire spans nearly half the plot.

Although I'm sure there are more hidden around, just waiting to ambush me when I turn my back.

After digging the compost, I finally finished off digging the Deep End bed No.4. The one which had all the clay in it. It did get a liberal helping of the compost that was previously recovered from the afore mentioned compost bin. But it was at this point that I started feeling very faint. I crawled away into the shade to nurse a drink of water and get my breath back. I think it was sun stroke. Or just plain exhaustion. But either way, The Wife finished off planting the 15 Crown Prince squashes into this bed.

Last, but not least, before we left for the day, we picked a whole load of non-snail eaten Pak Choi leaves. This will be tonight's dinner.

Hopefully it will replace the leaves picked with loads more tasty treats for us. Now I'll see if I can get home without passing out. Maybe it's the fact that we left early without breakfast?

The Last Compost

Last as in the Compost Bins that is. Not the last of all the compost. I still have the couple of bags that I bought a few weeks back. But those bags will be used for the Tomatoes.

No, todat is a day for digging out the final compost bin. This is the bin that's been here the longest. About 3 years if I recall correctly. So for the most part there is a load of compost in there. However the bad news is that because it's been there so long it's settled and compacted. Which means that digging it out is hard work.

Ok, the stuff on the tops is still fresh. So that simply gets moved en-mass to the new bin area. (The bed at the very front which was the old Chard bed). But the lower levels need to be dug out, sieved and so on. It's back breaking work. Especially in the hot sun.

But when the jobs done, we can relax in the sunshine, guzzle a cool drink and watch the bees humming in the flowers in The Wife's raised bed.

The Foxgloves are just starting to flower, but the borage (I think it's borage anyway) Phacelia (Thanks Belinda) is already in full bloom, and if my camera didn't have so much issues trying to focus on the bees close up, I'd give you a photo of them too.

This sunshine isn't doing the Pak Choi any favours though. It looks like it's starting to bolt to seed already. Guess what we'll be eating over the weekend?

An unexpected Potato harvest.

So I did the usual "drop The Wife off for shopping and head to the plot" thing. Following on from yesterday's digging, I dug out the small bed in the middle of the plot which was last year's dumping ground for odds and ends.

So imagine my surprise when I find stumpy old carrots, half eaten beetroots, nettles, thistles, and a load of spuds.

Now, I'm not sure whether they are edible as they all seem to have sprouted and many have a zillion little roots. But one thing I can do, is plant them again, with a little more space and care. Normally I use bags for planting potatoes but these ones seem to have done OK, in the bed. It's just a matter of making sure you dig them all out, because you have spuds for life otherwise.

Digging (again)

So here is the missing photo from last week regarding the Courgettes.

But today is a day for digging. First thing I have to sort out is the the bed adjacent to the above three, more commonly known as Deep End 4.

It is full of weeds. Although that's not the biggest problem. This bed has not had any additional material added to it (unlike the other three) so only the top few inches is actually decent soil. From about 5 inches down it is solid clay, which making the digging really difficult.

In the middle (just behind the fork handle in the above photo) is a large rogue chard plant. It needs to come out. However it won't go to waste, because I'll strip the leaves and it will be tonight's dinner.
(In fact as I write this, it was dinner. And very tasty it was too).

I didn't take any more photos because I was just too knackered. But apart from the digging, we potted on the sweet corns from their little trays into reasonable sized pots. It's still too early to put them out. The Wife also increased her Strawberry Empire by potting up some of the little runners that she kept into large trays - the same size trays as the Pak Choi. Talking of which, they are coming on really well. But there appears to have been an invasion of the snail variety as a lot of the leaves have been munched on. I did pick out (and squash) all that I could find, but I'll have to keep my eyes on them.

I also planted my first lot of potatoes into bags. Not sure how well they'll do, but there is no harm in trying.

I'll be back tomorrow whilst The Wife does her usual massive shop. So drop off at the Sainsbury's Mega Centre and then back to the plot for more digging and delving.