It did not rain overnight and I woke up to sun shining through thick mist which made a bit surreal. I was out fairly early to do the trailer run by the time the I was back at the lottie the sun had burned off the mist. Dave P and Haz were at the lottie whilst I emptied the trailer but had left by the time I got back. I had the place to myself for ages. Today objective was to clear Bed1 of all plants and dig it over. I cut down the remaining Brussels Sprouts and after trimming I put them in the back of Degsy. The Sprouting Broccoli was a bit different. Something has been eating them over the winter so despite all my husbandry there is not a sprout to be had. That is disappointing because sprouting broccoli is £2 a tray in the shops. I dug up the plants and having knocked the dirt off the root I put the by the compo bin. Then it was just a matter the turning over the soil. It was quite compacted since the Broccoli has been in for nine months. The good thing about broccoli is that it keeps the weeds down so there was hardly any Dock to be found and what was growing was small. It took a good hour of effort to turn the soil over. I broke up the rough clods of soil with the back of the fork then sweeping the fork back and forth brought the soils surface to a fine tilth.
I had a walk round the other beds and spot weeded. It was mostly Dock. They were small since they were just sprout from broken roots from previously dug Docks. I had a bit of Lime left so a flung it across bed2 having first checked which way the wind was blowing. I have a huge piece of black plastic which had been covering part of Bed1. To dig bed1 I had to move it. Having spread the lime on bed2 I spread out the plastic and weighed it down. I hope the plastic will heat up the soil and give a good start to the brassicas that will be planted out in a few weeks.
I had some spare Shallots and a bagful of red onion sets. I did not mark the Shallot row last week. I knew roughly were the row was. I scuffled the soil with my fingers and found one of the planted Shallots. In a week it had sprouted an inch of root. Having found the previous row I marked up the new row and set about planting the new Shallots. Then I marked rows for the red onion. I put in 30 shallot and 60 red onion.
The final job has been outstanding all winter. The bird netting has taken a beating through the winter. I managed to find some green polythene twine and with it I repaired the broken mesh. It was not all work today. I had a couple of brew thanks to the Trangia. To sup my brew in comfort I got out the folding chair. I set it up on the path my by the lottie gate so that I could have the sun on my back and watch the bird to my front. There were all the usual suspects, tits - blue, great and long tailed along with blackbird, bullfinch, dunnock and pied wagtails. But today there was a newcomer, a yellow and brown speckled bird a bigger than a finch but smaller than a Blackbird. It really stood out in the sunshine for all the world looking like a budgerigar. Steve told me that it was a Yellowhammer. It was pleasant siting in the sunshine sipping my brew and watching the little birds whilst in the fields roundabout where flocks of pigeon and various corvids; crow, rook and magpie over flown by Kestrel and Buzzard. Whilst sitting there a pair of Mallard shot low overhead. The things you see when you have not got your gun!
I chopped up the broccoli that Steve did not take for the chooks and filled the compo bin. I found a couple of plastic bags and filled them with weeds I had dug up this and last week. There was a lot of soil left behind on the slabs so I dropped the soil through the sieve just to get all the broken bit of weed out. The recovered soil went on the Rhubarb bed. Speaking of Rhubarb the Victoria has broken the surface on the muck pile it has been living under. I filled my green bucket with muck and put it the back of Debsy together with all the tools and trundled home happy in a good days work. The whole of the lottie is dug over bar one third of bed4 and I shall deal with that next week.
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