7 October

Not long since my last post but an afternoon of digging today. Hurt the wrist unfortunately so might be my last digging for a while!

Dried the spuds off outside and bagged them in paper bags. Not a bad haul - not exactly going to see us through winter, but the above I estimate about half of what we took. Not bad considering the season was so restricted between getting the plot and the abrupt end from blight!

A few shots of the family this time. The bean eater above - always enjoyed himself. The mud eater below, and the wife trying to get the mud out of her mouth!! (Sshh... don't tell anyone)

Yes... Mud on his finger...

The two shots above show the trenching method I chose. I just can't dig the whole plot with muck and break up the clay, so I'm going to try to dig as beds. I marked out some beds, dug out a trench of about a fifth of the bed, and put in a barrow load of compost. I forked this in, then buried it with the soil from the next fifth. Each bed starts by filling the back of the last. I dug 2 this way today. One for over winter brassicas, one for winter lettuce. I've got some fleece, mesh and piping so this weekend hopefully I'll build and plant! Will be ready for winter then.

EDIT: Just had dinner. Fish fingers (not home grown!), spinach (beet), chipped potatoes, cos lettuce and tomatoes (cherry and usual). Plus an apple and blackcurrant crumble to look forward to. Amazing! Thanks go to the wife (who doesn't read this ;) ) for making good use of everything. Thanks also for giving us a squash / bean break...

5 October

The blight cometh!!!

I thought I saw some brown patches 6 days before this. The next day I came down and sprayed the lot with Bordeaux mixture to see if that held it off. The thick foliage was reduced amazingly to the above - mere soggy sticks! The fact that any earth is visible is remarkable considering how thick the foliage was a week ago :(

Anyway, I lifted the lot. Four carriers of spuds on top of 3 I lifted earlier in the week. I'm amazed how quick they all grew.

A bag of spinach and a cos lettuce as well. Not a bad harvest although pretty hard work for what I took away!

Got  a humble reminder about the difference between digging with a spade and a fork today. Tried to break up some of the clay under the spud bed. Think I did a gd job but it was hard going. Must remember to dig with a spade first when breaking up soil in future. A fork was a waste of time until I'd cleared the bottom of each trench at which point the spade was a waste of time!

Only one thing to do with the foliage...

The plot itself looking nice. Was gd to take a lettuce off - will have to see tomorrow how bad the slug damage is. It didn't look bad at all.