Weeding, digging and sowing

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in and around our veg patches with plenty of weeding, digging over and sowing having been done. The patch to the rear of the polytunnel is now nice and tidy and ready for more planting over the next few week. Regular visitors to the blog will know that we already have some broccoli and cauliflowers planted out there, along with a good number of garlic cloves. With the weather now starting to get a bit warmer (and not too wet) we also decided to use that patch to put in our first direct sowings of carrots and a couple of different varieties of onions last weekend.

Before we run out of space for new sowings we also need to get the other two patches weeded and dug over, which is a bit of a mammoth job as they were largely neglected last year. Having moved to the cottage from a maisonette with a small back garden we only brought a few pots of tomatoes, chillies and potatoes with us and so didn’t have much to put into the ground last year apart from a few turnips (mostly grown as forage for the turkeys) and some potatoes for our Christmas dinner. As a result, we left two of the three veg patches to their own devices. You can see the amount of work that was involved in clearing the one that we did tackle by comparing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos below. Just looking at them reminds me how tiring it was!

As spring is now upon us it’s time for the remaining two veg patches to get the same treatment. I made a start on the patch at the top of our garden last weekend and it’s now pretty much clear of weeds. One of this weekend’s jobs will be to dig it over to loosen the compacted areas and incorporate plenty of homemade compost to improve the condition of the soil. It’s never easy work but the effort should hopefully be reflected in healthier, more productive crops for the rest of the year.