More weeding

A beautiful afternoon and I'll be away for the next two days so I made sure to have some time with my hands in the soil this afternoon.
I weeded out the strawberry bed and put down the mulch mats. I bet they blow away the first time the wind blows! I put the leeks down the middle of the bed last Autumn because strawberries and leeks go well together according to Companion planting gurus Bob Flowerdew and Gertrud Franck.

The next bed along which has the broccoli still in it is also clean now, and I sowed spinach.....4 rows..in there. I have covered it up because the cats love newly turned soil.

I sowed the spinach rows 50cm apart going across the bed. I will try to do a mini Gertrud Franck method on this bed this year. The spinach rows become marker rows, and you plant the crops you want in between them. Then the spinach is mostly hoed down to form a mulch to suppress weeds and to keep the soil damp. Further greenstuff is added on top to form "sheet compost" and this should enrich the soil a lot. With this method it should become unnecessary to add manure. We'll see!
I also cleaned the other two beds along this row. In the distance you can see the bed with the irises in which I will soon be moving to the front garden. They all seem to be alive so I am heartened. It was a very wet winter and I feared they'd rot. There are also a few tiny onions which I grew from seed last year and forgot. I put them in here just to fill the bed up. They seem to be growing so will do for a meal whilst we are waiting for the main crop to come in.

The far bed still has some fennel (now recovered somewhat after the snow and all the deep frosts) and some leeks.

I must get round to spreading some of the manure. I have 8 bags left to spread here....as well as 20 more still full at the plot.