Here’s an almost wordless month in pictures update. I’m so far behind that I’m cramming 3 months into one mosaic and as I didn’t seem to make it to the plot much in those first 3 months, there isn’t a lot to say.

As you know from previous posts, spring has been creeping up and catching me all out of sorts on the plot. My digging and general pottering time has been a little curtailed this year and as a result all my horticultural efforts seem to be taking me further and further away from award winning standards. The weeds grow at rates at least double that of my hoeing cadence and the slugs procreate at unfathomable speeds.

I’ve never managed to impress my mother with my tidy standards, and by that I mean that dust has been known to settle in my flat, so it is no real surprise that my plot has begun to look a little run down with the neglect. Baler twine and discarded fleece has built up in piles next to multiple hacked apart plastic bottles and although I’m sure they will all be vitally important one day it is actually beginning to drag down the general ambience.

Fortunately I had the foresight to drag Lynn down on the plot on Saturday, her vaguely OCD tendancies resulted in a whirlwind cleaning session, in which plastic and mucky stuff could not be saved. Old compost bags were stuffed with debris and then I introduced her to the hoe…… these are fabulous tools for lovers of all things tidy. While I can get easily fed up and leave a bed only half weeded, Lynn refused to allow us to leave the plot until the entire area had been weeded and had passed “certain standards”.

All that took more than 4 hours and my back was breaking at the end of it, but then the results were rather pleasing.

I like tidy people, they are very welcome on my plot.

We couldn’t walk so well for the next few days but I slept well til yesterday when I started to panic again. Surely to goodness I should have had my leeks in by now? And what about the PSB?
I took an emergency day off work and managed to squeeze the grand total of 30 minutes on the plot. It was quite a successful 30 mins though.

I got in a row of leeks, purple sprouting broccoli, mixed lettuce and some early nantes carrots. We’d also had the lawnmower out for the first time this year and I was able to apply a layer of hot steamy grass clippings to my potato ridges.

I would have layered my trenches with the grassy mulch had they been available last week but I’m pretty sure they’ll work just as effectively from above. My Dad’s neighbouring plot holder grows the most enormous vegetables and his secret seems to be the application of copious amounts of grass.