I admit it. Sometimes I write a blog post just because I've thought of a funny title for it. In this case, however, the subject matter did exist before I nailed the name, as we spent the first day of British Summer Time digging out the last of the rotted compost and trugging it round to the front garden to mulch the top flower bed. To quote Master Yoda: "Adventure! Excitement! A Jedi craves not these things..."
Exciting or not, it was a necessary task. The top bed hasn't had anything put on it by way of soil improver for years and had been starting to get a bit thin and the compost heap hadn't been dug or turned for over a year. I did make a start on digging the compost out last autumn, only to get a nasty shock - I unearthed a rat's nest and (not nice to recall) inadvertently impaled a couple of baby ones with my fork. Unsurprisingly, I got a decidedly rueful look from mother rat when she returned to the nest site, which I squeamishly abandoned. As a precaution, we had the Council's exterminators in and, by the time they had finished their treatments, it was too late in the year to disturb the remainder of the heap, which has been a toad hibernation site in previous years. Anyway, the job is done now thanks to a team effort - Jon dug out the compost and filled plastic trugs, which I carried through to the front garden, dressing around the tulips and (hopefully) smothering the annual weeds. The perennials, some of which got covered over, will soon find their way through.
The first early taters went in too. This year I'm trying a variety called
Epicure, in one of the plots in the back garden mulched with more of the well-rotted compost, so it'll be interesting to see how well they do. I've got
Kestrel second earlies to go in on the allotment soon, along with the other old favourites
Pink Fir Apple and
Highland Burgundy Red, although I'm also trying out
Golden Wonder which are supposedly also fairly slug-resistant.
The first batch of broad beans (
Bunyard's Exhibition) are almost ready to go out too. They've been hardening off in the cold-frame to get them acclimatised to outdoor conditions
and I'll hopefully get them out on the allotment soon, I'll use one of the lower beds which didn't have green manure on through the winter. While the phycelia grew well again, there was not a trace of the red clover so I won't bother with that in future. I have plans to grow many more peas and beans this year than last and already have a second sowing of broad beans and some peas (
Misty) coming on in the greenhouse. Later this month I plan to get some runner and French beans underway, so the beds that missed out in green manure can have nitrogen-fixing crops instead.
As usual, I'm experimenting with out-of-date seeds (things I've bought and also cast-offs from my green-fingered manager) and have ended up with more than fifty tomato plants from packets of 'sow by 2014' seed - plum-type
San Marzano and
Gardener's Delight. As well as spares to swap and sell, I may have enough to try an outdoor crop, although in previous years my attempts have ended in a slimy, blighty failure. Perhaps It's time to think about getting a polytunnel for the allotment?
