Thursday 11th October
With rain forecast I came down to the plot in the morning expecting a curtailed session. It started spotting before I got to the gate but fortunately that was it and I had the whole morning on site.
I can't yet build my new compost bin as I need new pallets so I decided to clear the squashes (that had gone in too late and so produced nothing), the cucumbers (after a tremendous crop they had stopped), the courgettes (after cutting the last small courgettes before they rotted off), and the melons (now they had given me their best).
Looking around, I realised that weeds had proliferated in several places so attacked those growing in the brassica cage. It took a bit of effort to hoe and rake between all the cabbage and cauliflower plants but soon I had raked out all the weeds and everything looked neat and tidy.
With rain forecast I came down to the plot in the morning expecting a curtailed session. It started spotting before I got to the gate but fortunately that was it and I had the whole morning on site.
I can't yet build my new compost bin as I need new pallets so I decided to clear the squashes (that had gone in too late and so produced nothing), the cucumbers (after a tremendous crop they had stopped), the courgettes (after cutting the last small courgettes before they rotted off), and the melons (now they had given me their best).
Looking around, I realised that weeds had proliferated in several places so attacked those growing in the brassica cage. It took a bit of effort to hoe and rake between all the cabbage and cauliflower plants but soon I had raked out all the weeds and everything looked neat and tidy.
With the compost bin full, the mass of growth had to be left in a heap with the addition of the weeds that had sheltered from the weather and my sight under the leaves. However I was able to hoe off the considerable patches cleared but, with rain forecast, I had to rake all the small weeds off into the heap to stop them being washed back into the soil and rooting again.
However there was also a heap of cucumber/courgette/squash vines on top of the heap of compost that was waiting to be spread.
There was also a great deal of rubbish, weeds and soil that had spilled onto the path so I spent a few minutes scraping them aside with the shovel and then sweeping everything clean to avoid a slippery mess when the rain came.
There was also a great deal of rubbish, weeds and soil that had spilled onto the path so I spent a few minutes scraping them aside with the shovel and then sweeping everything clean to avoid a slippery mess when the rain came.
I finished with a session of harvesting and went home with a good picking of French beans, the last of the courgettes (some very small but tender), a couple of cucumbers I had come across in the debris, a big bag full of the fatter fennel and a small handful of blackberries and raspberries. It started to rain on the way home!
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