May 17th, 2023

Tuesday planting out peas.
I was dropped off at the plot together with Missy the dog and a tray of legumes to plant out. 
Missy will chase anything that moves and cannot be recalled so she was attached to the extending lead which I hung from a steel rod fencing spike driven into the ground part way up the plot. She was happy pottering about and sniffing at all the plants and weeds, a sign the rats etc visit!
For the legumes I needed to clear the bed of weeds, including lots of bindweed, and raspberry shoots growing through from next door where he has, as last year, dug the front of the plot but planted nothing, and left the back half almost untouched. 


I then planted out a double row of 24 pea plants out of the root-trainers they had grown in inside the greenhouse at home. Fleecing them will, hopefully, avoid having to harden them off. 




As I finished off the pea planting I realised the next door patch covered in weeds and overhung with nettles was where I planned to plant the first batch of runner beans. It took a little while to clear everything, including the thorny brambles that had encroached from the wilderness on the next plot.
That done I raked the part composted woodchip my son had left heaped on the early potatoes so they were earthed up more. It will need more.
While I got ready to harvest the next batch of asparagus I noticed that bindweed was appearing in quantity between the rows of seedlings on my 'Roots' bed so spent some time pulling it up. The thinking is that the plant will exhaust itself as long as you remove the chance it has to use sunlight to feed itself.
While most snapped off a short way below the surface at the soil/mulch boundary, there were plenty of satisfying occasions where I pulled long lengths from the mulch. The 'No-Dig' philosophy does not allow for digging it out though I do sometimes use a fork to ease more root from the soil. I also break the rules along the boundary where the bindweed grows through across the boundary both ways and it would be un-neighbourly to just pull it from the surface.
Finally I gathered the harvest of asparagus spears to take home.

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