Getting there

On Friday I found a slot where my back strength and the time available coincided and went to start getting to grips with the plot. I'm about 3/4 of the way there with the beds, but need to spend a lot of time on the bank too.....so it looks like I'll never catch up this year.

I have a load of brassicas hardening off and want them at the plot, so I prepared the long bed at the top ready for them. I'll put them in on Monday when they should be ready to face the great outdoors. It is going to be a warm week with nights when the temperature won't drop too far.

I also should be sowing some squash and pumpkins as the ones I sowed in the tunnel were eaten by mice. I hope it isn't too late for that.

I think I will give up on the sweetcorn this year as the mice had all of them too. I knew they had but didn't have a chance to get any more seed and now I think it is too late.

The spuds are flourishing, the broad beans are being harvested now and there are plenty there for the next few weeks. The carrots are showing (under the micromesh) and I hoed and tidied them. The beetroot are all up and I hoed them too.

Everywhere that I used the hoe the soil was like dust. And digging the top bed was a dream. In the end I went all over it with the Wolf cultivator and the tilth was fine in no time.

I have vast amounts of comfrey growing tall along the fence at the back of the plot. This needs cutting to add to the compost heap and to use as mulch everywhere. I also took a huge builders rubble bag half full of mowings to the plot to mulch the spuds.

I feel a bit better about my plot now but I still have a long long way to go to get it looking like I want it to. We have had a difficult spring with my back "going" and a lot of our secular work coming in all at once....as well as a wedding we were involved in and other projects. I am hoping that life will quieten down somewhat so that I can get back to my big love.

I went to the Chelsea Flower Show last Wednesday. I had a good but exhausting day. I have a lot of pictures which I will sort out and post on here in the coming weeks. The show was much more low key than the last two years, but I liked the fact that the designers were more in tune with how most of us garden. There was less of the expensive marble and other paving that we all look at but can't afford. There was good use of more attainable path materials such as builders' "clunch" (for want of a better word.....sand and other gritty stuff packed down) and old bricks. Also plenty of great ideas for green gardeners....for example a bug hotel to beat all others I have ever seen.

There was also the totally silly, but amusing. The plasticene garden was garish, and manned by some girls who were a bit "slow"! I asked one of them for a plant list and she just looked at me vacantly. Either she was thick, or had no sense of humour. I can't believe that a thousand others hadn't asked the same thing...! Ah! Perhaps that was it....she was bored! Well anyway, it got a laugh from the other visitors around me.