Merry Tiller the Broad Beans Bed and Clearing First Early Potatoes

Alone on the site

Went down around 7.30pm on Wednesday and the site was empty. It was very strange after it being so crowded the last few days. Anyway, the water pressure was good so continued with the sprinkler while I got on with a few other jobs.

Carted a load of wood chippings to re-cover the path between my plot 5 and plot 4. Harvested yet more courgettes and some salad stuff for tea. I don’t think the most efficient supermarket in the world could boast soil to table in 15 minutes!

Back home the tomatoes are on twice daily watering and twice weekly feeding. Sungold and Garden Pearl are cropping well, the rest are still green.

Merry Tiller

On Thursday I got down around a bit earlier, moved the sprinkler and then ran the Merry Tiller over the broad bean patch on plot 29. It took about half an hour to loosen the soil back to fine tilth. I am going to plant the last attempt at cauliflowers and some leeks on there

Potatoes

I’m clearing the earlies now, made a start but the soil is pretty hard. Next year I must educe the amount I grow! I’m intending to save some seed potatoes for next year if I can.

Bugs and Beasties

Going down in shorts means my exposed legs have been at the mercy of the insect community. Knelt down on some red ants that gave me some nasty bites or stings on my right knee and something else has bitten my ankles. These bites are really quite nasty and taking ages to heal. Boy do they itch!

Posh Bins

Had a good chat with the yuppies (JOKE!) who were planting late potatoes Juliette. He would like it to be known that he does not glaze over at the mention of computers and offers a free advice and repair service to anyone who asks (yeah, right) I did notice his brand new Mantis runs a lot more quietly than mine. Maybe I’d best look at giving it some TLC at the end of the season.

In Memoriam

We had some sad news, our neighbour, Peter, has died. He was in his late seventies but seemed very fit for any age, although he had been getting a bit confused recently. He hailed from Poland and his stories of his childhood there under the German occupation were pretty harrowing. He was in Russia with his wife and died on his birthday there. We will miss him.