Planting & Picking!

Saturday mornings are always busy at the Hill – plenty of plot holders about as I arrived this morning including teacher Barry, supervising some onion lifting at novice neighbour Jody’s plot – Jody had his toddler with him, checking out what was growing on daddy’s plot.

Firstly, I wanted to put some feed onto the legume & misc. beds, so I went to the shed & bought enough fish, blood & bone to cover – a grand investment of £1 for 2kg.

Once this was raked in – whilst having a chat to Retired Maureen – I planted out the last batch of BROAD BEANS (witkeim manita), as well as climbing FRENCH BEANS (barlotti) & DWARF FRENCH BEANS (talisman) then back to the miscellaneous bed to plant out half a dozen each of LETTUCE (mini green & little gem) & to sow a row of RADISH (french breakfast 3).

Whilst popping a few weeds on the top of the compost bin, I wondered how the other bin is getting on (currently 'cooking'), so I took the lid off & had a poke around with the fork.

Although the edges are looking unrotted, the middle is looking almost ready. I stirred it up as best I could, added a huge bucket of comfrey cut from retired Maureen's out-of-control plant then a big bucket of rotting manure from the skip – dug from down in the middle where it is steaming & too hot to touch, then I re-covered the bin.

This just left the nice bit of harvesting – I dug up the first POTATOES (dunluce), then picked some BROAD BEANS (barry plot 19), RADISH (french breakfast 3), LETTUCE (hsl stoke), a few STRAWBERRIES & a couple of RASPBERRIES, which tasted very good indeed.

That just left the first of the sweet peas to cut & a wander down to the bottom to see how Rhubarb Brian & John Badger were getting on. All in all, a very satisfactory couple of hours work – albeit spread over a good deal of the day…