Shopping, Prepping and Mending

The Hill storeshed is kept stocked with all sorts of gardening essentials all at very reasonable prices, and purchases can be made through any committee member who you can happen to catch on the plot. But from the middle of March, the storeshed is open for business on a more formal basis, on Saturday and Sunday mornings for a couple of hours.

So instead of wandering up and down the site in the hope of catching someone with a key, yesterday I could march up to the shed and talk to Cheery Brian who was playing storekeeper for the morning and buy the fertiliser that I've been after for the past few weeks.

Despite the weather being markedly colder than the past couple of weekends, the Hill was full of plotters out of hibernation and all busy with preparations for the growing year, and the site was quite a hive of activity. 

And so to the business of final bed preparation in readiness for sowing and planting out - and after a couple of solid hours with a fork and the three-pronged cultivator, sprinkling the fertiliser as I finished each bed, six of the eight beds look pretty darn good, if I say so myself.

I cleared away the bamboo canes - the long ones to bring home, shorter ones to put in the toolshed in a bucket.  Any plastic balls which I use as cane toppers which have perished I put in a rubbish bag, and other pieces of wood gathered together at the back of the toolshed. 

Of the last two beds at the front of the plot, the one has the kale plants still growing strongly, and the other has the ramshackle netting tunnel protecting - let me see - ah, yes, three cabbage plants.  

I am curious as to how it can be improved upon, though, so took it back to basics and put the hoops closer together and used bamboo canes instead of heavier wooden spars as horizontal braces and it now looks a million dollars.

Content with progress, I tidied away my tools and headed home for a nice hot cup of tea.