The beginning of winter preparations

Wednesday 20th September
Having arrived early for the installation of the new sea container for the Trading Post, when it was all finished I took the opportunity to do some work on the plot. However, before I left the Trading Hut I collected a dozen 8ft canes to train my blackberries along. As I saw in one of my magazines, using canes avoids having to strain wires between the posts.
I had a bit of a shock when I temporarily lost them from outside the Trading Hut while talking with another tenant. Fortunately I asked around and found that someone had taken care of them in their shed!
On arrival at the plot I stored the canes away and then stacked the bags of weeds onto my already full compost bins. I scattered a couple of handfuls of 'Garotta' compost activator (available from InExcess at a very reasonable price for 3.5kg) as a colleague has done a trial on two parallel compost bins using activator on only one. The activated one has taken 3 times as much compost and rotted down well. Currently mine are heaped up so high that they are barely covered by the carpet 'lid'. Hopefully they will rot down nice and quickly.
I then spent a bit of time with the hoe cutting through the weeds that had shot up on the patch at the back of the plot. I had pulled up the taller, deeper rooted weeds so it was the chickweed and groundsel that mainly carpetted the patch. However, the weeds made a huge heap on the path when I had raked them clear - too much for the compost heap for now.
While walking up and down a head of broccoli had caught my eye.  As I went in to harvest it I saw there were several heads on the plant and more on its neighbours - enough for at least two meals.
There were also a few young runner beans visible but when I started picking them I managed to find quite a few.
I also wanted to pick the dwarf French Beans but realised I had forgotten them on the way home!