More warmth, more work...

A spell of decent weather and lighter evenings have meant a few extra trips to the plot of late. I have now started digging and preparing for the potatoes to go in, as well adding some manure to other areas where I think I will either grow salads or squashes. I'm deliberately limiting what I grow to things that store well or that I know will be used at home. To accommodate about 40 potato plants this year, I've started to ditch my bed system, that has been in place since I started in 2007. The aim is to reduce the amount of time I spend on maintaining infrastructure and increase the time on the plants. I've also tried to continue with my new found technique of actually doing something when I go to the plot rather than just standing around looking at it. I think I usually get more done when I'm on a short time limit, than when I have all day.

I've now finished pruning the raspberries but the supports for the netting have fallen down so that's another job for the future. I've also had to re-plant some of the onions I put in which have been strewn about by birds, spoiling my neat rows.

I'm fairly relaxed about when my crops will be planted this year. Most stuff can't go out until after the last frosts anyway, and in this part of the world that means the end of May. It's difficult to find the space and time to get seeds going at home so I may well cheat and buy some small plants at the garden centre when they become available. They can then go straight into my new cold frame, which, um, I still haven't begun constructing. But Rome wasn't built in a day, was it?