Friday 1st June
Having been rained off yesterday I grabbed the chance to spend part of this afternoon on the plot.
I first emptied the kitchen waste bin into my compost bin and worried that the smelly mess was exposed so, after chopping it up with a spade, I covered it with some of the grass cuttings already in the bin.
Next I started on earthing up the maincrop potatoes in an effort to reduce the chance of a blight infection (following the Blightwatch warning yesterday.) I remembered to scatter some slugbait along the rows before I started as well as what was left in the pot of potato 10.10.10 fertiliser. This is almost the only time I use my 3 prong cultivator and draw hoe. I loosen the soil by drawing the cultivator along the side of each row and then use the draw hoe to pull the soil up into a ridge over the plants. The first two rows (Sarpo Mira and King Edwards) have made so much growth that I couldn't cover them but the second two rows (a second row of Sarpo Mira and a row of Cara)  finished almost totally hidden.  Hopefully the slugbait and the fertiliser will do a good job.
​That done I moved on to digging out the chard that was going to seed. There was only three plants of rainbow chard but there was a whole row of Swiss chard. I cut the tops off the rainbow chard and a couple of tops of Swiss chard to take home, the rest became very expensive green manure as I chopped and folded the stems into the compost bin. That was added to by the seeding parsnips which I then also pulled up. I kept two of the best parsnip roots to try and make parsnip crisps at home. Finally I hoed off the weeds that had sprung up in the shelter of the row of Swiss chard, leaving them to die off inn tomorrow's promised sunshine.
I then decided to hoe between the rows of seedlings in the new roots bed as the weeds are growing at a fantastic pace and overwhelming the young plants. I had almost finished when a flash of red in the bed beside it caught my eye. It was a ripe strawberry in amongst the weeds smothering the strawberry patch. When I looked closely I found several more and started pulling out the weeds to expose the fruit. I soon found it necessary to fetch a hand fork and began weeding in earnest. While I found no more ripe fruit there was quite a crop developing, as well as a heap of weeds. Fortunately all the weeds are shallow rooted and came free fairly easily and I soon had completed nearly half the bed.

​Having exposed the strawberry plants and their ripening fruit I realised that the birds would also find the crop so I had to go and find the length of netting I had stored away and cover the whole bed. That done it remained for me to tidy up and go home, cutting four more asparagus spears to have with my evening meal.

Saturday 5th May
There was lots of discussion with lots of other plotholder including one who had a letter from the council who wanted advice on what to do next.


When I got onto the plot I went into the brassica tunnel to plant potatoes: the tunnel will be moved to the bed next to where it is now. I planted two rows, one of Sarpo Mira and one of King Edward. The latter is very susceptible to blight but the wife likes that variety so I plan to protect the row with Sarpo Mira on each side and see if that works. Both rows had a sprinkling of slug bait in the trench together with some 10:10:10 potato fertiliser before being covered over.








​I then pulled up several immature cauliflower plants to eat as Spring Greens, clearing the ground for the next rows of potatoes. A couple had miniature caulis in the centre but far too small to eat. The patch will have to be prepared for the second row of Sarpo Mira and a row of Cara which I bought as a last minute purchase from the Trading Hut when they were marked down.

​Next I drew out the drill ready to sow parsnips and one of the roots on my next visit as I had forgotten to bring the seeds!

Wednesday 2nd May
I arrived on the plot in the afternoon after a cold night wondering whether the potatoes had been affected by frost. I was pleased to see there was just a touch of brown on the biggest plants.

With the potatoes fully ridged there was no problem as they would soon outgrow the damage. However I got a surprise when I looked at my neighbour's potatoes.

​They had been badly hit! I think the brassica tunnel offered more protection than I realised.
I then dug over about half of the bed in the other tunnel ready for my maincrop potatoes. I went on to dig over the strip on the next door bed ready for sowing a late sowing of parsnips and left happy at the progress I had made.