I got to the plot to find that the wind had been busy. My 'pallet' gate had collapsed as usual but my plastic sheet covering the potato plot had lifted throwing one of my clay chimney pipes onto the path and smashing it. Down to six to grow my celery in.
Further down the plot was the cover to my neighbour's plastic greenhouse. He had reinforced the frame but the cover had split and flown away. I returned it to his plot together with his compost bin lid that I found in my runner bean trench.
If you haven't checked your plot it is worth a quick visit to make sure everything is still in place.
Having tidied up I raked over the potato plot to even it out and laid a line down for my earlies, Pentland Javelin. To make this easier I decided to use my bulb planter rather than dig a trench. Digging a trench does help if you want to lay your seed potatoes on a bed of grass cutting (which is supposed to help) or put in some compost but I had neither readily available. Planting a foot apart meant I could fit in 13 seed potatoes in the row leaving 3 over to plant in a container at home for an extra early crop.
A neat row finished and properly labelled and I went to dig in the rest of my green manure. After slicing the patch up into spade wide strips in the way I did with in the other half the other day, the Backsaver spade made quick work of digging the patch over. I followed it up by breaking up the clods with my cultivator.
Unfortunately by the time I had done this there was no time to rake back the horse litter from the track between the middle and far tracks. The deliverer had obviously had difficulty dumping it right in the bin area.
I then went home with a few leeks, some purple sprouting and the last of the forced rhubarb.