Planting the shallots and sorting the asparagus bed

Tuesday 10th October
On arrival my first task was to cut down the old asparagus fern and weed the ground underneath. The stalks were very woody and needed the secateurs and the weeds were thick but came up easily from the nice rich soil which I had mulched deeply last year. The resulting material needed chopping up with a spade before being added to the compost bin.

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​I then harvested quite a crop of Runner Beans, long after I expected any. While there are a bunch of bean pods swelling nicely and being saved for next year's seeds. - And there are a few I shall be able to harvest in the near future.

​​After that I set about planting my shallots that I had ordered online. I found a supplier who had a deal for 20 sets each of 'Jermor' and 'Eschallotte Grise' - exactly what I wanted. The 'Jermor' give lovely fat red skinned shallots and the 'Eschallotte Grise' hard skinned shallots that dice into my salad deliciously. Unfortunately when the package arrived the 'Eschallotte Grise' had been replaced with another variety, 'Hermine', due to 'quality issues'. No-one else seems to have 'Eschallotte Grise' so I planted a row of each where my second early spuds had been growing.

​The garlic I planted a little while ago have sprouted and are growing strongly.

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The winter squashes have produced quite a few different shapes and sizes. I shall need to crop them and store them somewhere.

Then I turned my attention to the non-existent green manure. The surface of the patch was pock-marked with little depressions where the birds had been feeding. I decided I needed to try some scarring device. I have longtime kept old video tapes so set canes round the edge and strung the tape from one round and criss-crossing the patch. I also set up both my spinning windmill bottles and tied short lengths of tape to the canes to flutter in the wind. That done I went home hoping there was still some seed left to grow!