For the last couple of days I have pedalled down in the evening to water in the greenhouse and the rows of seeds I have sown. I have sown three short rows of leeks, Musselburgh, Jolant and Lyon. The last is a packet of free seed from Kitchen Garden, the second is an early leek I grew last year with some success and the first is my attempt to grow a standard leek. I expect I shall buy a bunch of Musselburgh leeks from the Trading Hut as I did last year when mine failed.
Last night I sowed my parsnips, very late but not too late. 
However I first needed to clear weeds from the patch before sowing and got a barrowload of weeds to put in the compost. When you leave weeds to grow to any size it takes a great deal of effort to remove them. Despite having a stable litter mulch I needed to use the fork to lever each clump of weeds out of the ground before raking everything up, forking into the barrow and delivering to the compost heap.
Again I sowed several rows, partly because I found I had not bought fresh seed of my standard, White Gem. For some reason I had two opened packets from last year but in addition I had another free packet from Kitchen Garden of 'Tender & True' and a bought packet from Kings (via my RHAA order) of an F1 variety 'Palace'. I alternated the rows between the old and new seed so I don't get a big gap if the old seed fails.
I then set up boards to shade the rows so watering is more effective. The bed looks as though it is covered with a giant Venetian blind!

​My son (and helper) visited in between and cleared a large patch of weeds for me and took away the last of the celeriac as well as some asparagus.
Saturday, however, I drove down even though all I planned was watering because I had spent all day in the garden catching up with sowing and moving stone. Cycling would have been too strenuous. While watering I managed to deal with all the rubbish that had built up as well.

​Monday afternoon, my normal session on the plot, was meant to be a sowing session for all the seeds I should have sown already. However, the wind was so strong sowing was out of the question if I was to get the seeds in the drill.
So I decided to use the lawn mowings collected from one of my neighbours on my still-to-be-dug runner bean trench. Before that, though, I needed to remove the weeds and manure so I was clear to dig.
Unfortunately I had left the weeds to get established so I needed a fork to loosen their roots first. It was a long tedious job and there was a huge amount for the compost bin!


Digging the trench took me only a few minutes once I had cleared the patch and the manure I had moved aside was forked into the bottom. On top I spread the grass cuttings but left it open to subside a little before returning the soil.











​I then moved on to hand weeding the asparagus bed. 

​​Before leaving I watered the seeds sown a few days ago and the tomatoes newly planted in the greenhouse.

Finally got to the plot on Thursday afternoon. I found the rope I had left over was enough to brace the second brassica tunnel after struggling a bit to straighten them on my own. I also measured out and cut to length the cord I will use to support the Jerusalem Artichokes, dieting it to the posts in readiness.
I then moved the cloche over from the few struggling autumn sown pea plants to protect the newly planted broad beans I had bought cheap in Lidl. Those I sowed a little while ago have just started showing through the compost at last.








​Cutting down the Phacelia green manure with my bill hook resulted in a heap of green stuff which I couldn't spread over the patch to rot down.








I therefore scooped it up and put it in the compost heap and spread a thin layer of compost from my bin of ready to use compost ready for this year's crops.

​In last year's potato patch I noticed several raspberry shoots that had escaped from the next door row. Using a fork I eased them from the ground, trying not to disturb the soil more than necessary.
Looking at the leaf bin I realised there was room for more so I emptied another bag into it, covering it with its carpet cover to limit leaves being blown away. At the same time i emptied the kitchen waste bin into the compost bin burying the waste on under the green manure.
Harvesting consisted of some immature cabbage plants that were beginning to run to seed as spring greens. I also dug out a couple of parsnips.
On Sunday I spent a while with a couple of willing helpers filling some of the potholes we missed on the Working Party. Once we had used the last of the scalpings I returned to the plot having just enough time to harvest some Brussel Sprouts and a good crop of Purple Sprouting.

It has rained so much over the last ten days that I've not got to spend too much time on the plot.
However, after saving the willow whips for planting to shade my greenhouse I realised that maintenance of a willow hedge might just be too much effort. Instead I decided to bang in a couple of posts I had lying around so I will be able to support the Jerusalem Artichokes when they grow tall. I also banged in, using the thumper borrowed from the Trading Hut, a couple of 8 foot posts to support the loganberry that I pruned back. However, when my neighbour from the plot behind made the suggestion we put a gate in I realised one post was now in the wrong place.

​It took several days for me to gather everything together to extract it as it was over two feet into the ground. Eventually I levered it out at the second attempt using a block of wood screwed to the post and my scaffold pole/post hole borer and a stack of slabs, bricks and wooden slabs. It was so deep and firmly stuck that the first time the screws securing the block to the post just ripped out!
I'll be able to re-position the post once I've cleared the junk behind the shed on the other side of the loganberry!

​The other structural task I've done was, fortunately, a success!
​Using some rope I had left over from another job, I have straightened up one of my brassica cages using the rope as a diagonal straining wire to pull it back upright. The constant gales over the winter had pushed it over, giving it a crazy lean. At least now the support arches are in a vertical plane.

​Having sown peas last autumn under cloches and had them grow well only to gradually disappear, I had sown some Kelvedon Wonder and some Sugar Snap in pots at home in the greenhouse. Now they are a few inches high I have hardened them off and planted them out in a sheltered spot with a net tunnel over them to keep the worst of the weather off. I ripped out what was left of the autumn sown broad beans to give space for them and sowed a new short row of beans alongside.

​Using a new hoe my son has brought with him which has a huge cutting head, I hoed off the weeds from the bed (4m. by 1m.) where the cucumbers grew last summer. It shows how much I am behind as it took a wheelbarrow to take the heap down to the compost bin! Now I need to mulch the bed.

​With just a short time left on the plot I started digging over the path next to the Autumn raspberries (Joan J) taking out all the fine roots in an effort to reduce the number of wayward shoots that raspberries always seem to send up away from the main plants.
Harvesting to take home was some small Brussels, some purple sprouting, a leek and two huge parsnips that had intertwined! 

​P.S. I was frustrated when the next day I visited the tip to dispose of some un-compostable garden waste, only to see a dozen stalks of huge Brussels in the skip. If I could be sure that they were wholesome and not sprayed with chemicals I would have gathered some up to take home instead of my puny crop!

​PPS On the way out, yet again, I found someone had left the gate wide open! Perhaps the rash of pilfering is someone wandering in through the open gate!

Looking back its nearly a year since my last post!
First my computer was getting very slow making every post a trial but also I was struggling keeping up with my 10 rod plot. Now the laptop has had an upgrade and is now almost like new and my son has joined me in working on the plot.
 - So now I hope to have time to maintain the blog!
Last year was a very mixed bag. All my onions, some of the shallots, and even some of my leeks, ran to seed. Potatoes were also less productive: the bags of perfect spuds were quite small but we've survived so far and we are still eating home grown. The Brussels Sprouts we are harvesting at the moment are just big enough to use and neither have my cauliflowers grown this year.
Fortunately, I'm happy to be harvesting my first ever Black Kale together with the usual parsnips and leeks. And we are still using up the shallots from 2018, which is a good thing as the 2019 crop is not very large.
While I dwell on the problems of last year, it cannot be that bad as I came across last year's prize tickets from the show in August and there were a few! And the lettuce I planted in the old tomato grobags in the greenhouse. This is despite losing two of the plastic roof panels in the recent gales. A costly repair.
Having spent a month over Christmas and New Year visiting my son in Milwaukee, USA, I didn't get started until nearly the end of January. Since then I've started digging out my compost bin, mulching the asparagus bed, and


I've moved one of my brassica tunnels to its new site what spring cauliflower and cabbage are already growing. A mulch of partially decomposed leaf mould will keep them cosy and moist even if it stops raining.






​I've also started clearing the rubbish from behind the greenhouse and round my Loganberry. Perhaps I'll get a better crop this year now I've dug out the huge spiky bramble from beside the greenhouse!

I have also started digging out the Jerusalem Artichokes that shaded the end of the greenhouse. The wind just blew them over so they weren't very effective. I have some willow wands from pollarding my tree at home so I am thinking of growing a clipped willow screen there instead.
At home, despite my consummate lack of skill, I have started sowing in the insulated frost-proof section of my greenhouse using my heated propagators. Tomatoes, cabbages, peas and beans and several other seedlings are already on the go! I guess I'll still have to buy plants from the Trading Hut when mine shrivel up and die - but I keep trying!

Sunday 19 May
Arrived on site with a collection of cauliflower plants to plant out. This is the range of coloured caulis I had bought online. 
On the way in I checked in with our President, Hugh Merrett, in the Association greenhouse as earlier in the week I had been given a wooden greenhouse bench and shelf. He immediately thought he had a use for them so I drove down to the plot and carried them from there where I had stored them to the greenhouse where they were found to fit nicely.
I then returned to the plot and went to the brassica cage where I had to pull two cabbages, one small and the other a decent size, that had recently hearted up and were in the way. I set the cauliflower plants in their pots out on the ground to check they would fit in the space and had to make a minor modification from the plan I had on computer (courtesy of Suttons).
​Just as I was about to start planting I had a visit from Tina from the far track who described finding a hedgehog that had been injured by a strimmer. She initially left it alone to see if it could recover but checking later found it was seriously injured so took it to the Hedgehog Hospital in New Milton.
Shows how careful you need to be with a strimmer!
By the time we'd finished it was 11 o'clock, time for coffee and cake - delicious coffee and raisin cake this week!
Returning to the plot I started planting out the caulis using, as they are quite large plants when mature, my normal system of digging a 4 inch deep hole and then using a bulb planter at the bottom. As usual each plant got a good dose of lime in the hole.
I managed to plant 5 plants each of:-
'Veronica', a green Romanesco,
'Graffiti', a purple cauli,
and 'Sunset', an orange one.
I still have to plant 5 ' Clapton f1' which are normal white caulis but club root resistant - as well as 10 kohlrabi.
I had run out of time so picked the purple sprouting from the lone plant covered in yellow flowers left to seed for next year and, after trimming the cabbages went home for lunch - late as usual!

​I had taken home the kale plants after my last visit and stripped them of leaves and sprouts for the freezer, so there was room to plant a row of seed potatoes. 
No-dig does mean I didn't have to dig over the patch but just hoe the weeds and cultivate the surface. I then buried the seed potatoes just beneath the surface with a tiny ridge to ensure the chitted shoots were covered. Then I drew a small ridge of soil over the row ready for mulching with a thick mulch of horse litter.

​I mulched the early potatoes, carefully covering the emerging shoots, and covered all that patch including the second earlies and Cara potatoes. Not tidy but effective!
I then had time to pick yet more purple sprouting, this time from the dwarf plants on the new cabbage patch inside the newly constructed brassica cage.

​I finished off by putting the finishing touches to the cage with a pair of hooks to hold up the batten the door netting is wound round.

Saturday 13th April
Having missed a visit or two with a throat infection and the installation of my wood stove, I made an extra visit today. With the Working Party tomorrow, Sunday, I will get nothing done on my plot then.
My main target was to finish netting my half completed brassica cage. Both sides are pigeon proof but the top and door are open. The old netting was stored rolled on its batten in the shed, with the runner bean canes. A couple of staples held the end on the back rail and I rolled the batten along to top and dropped it down the front over the doorway. With a bit of adjustment I was able to staple the netting to the top side rail, folding the slack with a stapled 'Hospital corner' at each end where it bent over the end hoop. The end, rolled on the batten, lays on the ground and held in place with stakes and a couple of short post ends laid to trap the netting against the stakes. That covers the doorway.

Having completed the framework of the cage I retrieved the netting from the shed and started stapling it onto the frame. Starting at the back I fixed the side strip of buttefly netting. The other side has a lower strip of 2 inch square netting that lets the small birds in to deal with the greenfly with the butterfly netting above. Butterfly netting covers the metre wide strip above this wide netting.
​I had to be quite careful measuring and checking before stapling the netting in place so it took me some time. However, I was happy with the result when I had to go home without doing anything else. It only remains for me to cover the top of the cage.

Sunday 7th April
Returning from a trip away, I wanted to get on with rebuilding the first brassica cage on the new patch at the far end of the plot. I was stopped last time by not having suitable battens for the side stringers so I visited InExcess on the way and collected enough for this cage and the second.
I stopped at the gate and the Trading Hut to put up notices for next week's Working Party so decided to have my Sunday morning coffee straight after unloading the timber. It was great to see that the Wildlife List on the cabin was already very long -and it has only been up a week!
After coffee I returned to the plot and sorted the best battens for the stringers. They need to be in line with the edges of the netting for stapling so I spent some time measuring and marking where to fix them. Even so I had to make some adjustments while fitting them.
Once I had finished the structure felt quite strong and stable so I hope to do without any diagonal struts.
All this had taken some time and I realised it was lunchtime when my neighbours settled down for a picnic. Hence there was no time for harvesting.