​Preparations for planting Garlic and Shallots

​Sunday 24th September
After doing some work on the new container with John Bachelor our chairman, and recovering with a delicious slice of cake and coffee despite the damaged café shed, I arrived on the plot quite late.
My main priority was to prepare the patch next to the leeks where I had lifted the potatoes ready for planting the garlic and shallots. Buying the bulbs from InExcess means little choice but they are ridiculously cheap. I am still checking whether garlic 'Germidour' is a hard neck variety that doesn't store - or not. However the cost was only 15% of the £30 I would have paid if I had ordered online.
Having already dug out the rows of potatoes I only needed to dig the trenches between and remove the odd weed. I then decided to weed the rows of leeks next to the patch. I managed to hoe most of the weeds without chopping through a single leek plant but I really need to leave a bit more space between rows as I trod on several! I tried to range off the weeds with a cultivator as the rake was too wide but eventually found the fork was the best implement. For once I even remembered to hand weed between the plants where the hoe couldn't reach without damaging the leeks themselves.

Now all I need to do to before planting the garlic and shallots is rake it over to get a good tilth and work in some fertilizer.
After exerting myself doing that I cooled down by picking some greens for my evening meal. One of the cabbage stumps had produced several shots with good heads of 'autumn' (not spring) greens so I pulled up the one plant and trimmed off the heads to take home. A Savoy cabbage had formed a good solid head so rather than leave it to go off, I pulled it up and plan to hang it in the garage to eat later in the week. As I was leaving the brassica tunnel I noticed a broccoli head and then found a couple more I had missed - just enough for a meal!
Then I looked at my squashes as Monty Don said to clear leaves away from them to let the sun ripen them. I did this by removing most of the mildewed leaves, revealing 5 well developed marrows as well.

​I also found a courgette which I put by on a slab ready to take home. It is still there as I forgot it! I hope it doesn't suffer overnight before I collect it tomorrow.​
​Before going home for a late lunch I harvested a good helping of raspberries and blackberries though I got caught in a shower before I had finished.