Saturday’s planned dig with Suzy’s had to be abandoned when the rain came down and kept coming down all weekend. Such a nuisance. I was desperate to get on and do some work though, so took a couple of hours off today and went down to the allotment on my own.

The first job was to work on the ledge, which is the raised boundary at the back. There’s a raised edge at the fence, which must have been formed when the fence was put in. A step up will be very useful round the back of the shed, as the compost bins to stand there are tall to me and so having a step up next to them will be good.

I’ve formalised and raised the ledge there and utilised / hidden two big pieces of miscellany that were in the plot when I moved in: a long metal pole and a long painted wooden plank. They now form the front retaining edge of the ledge. I’ve begun to reduce the raised edge to the right of end of the plank and bring that extra soil along to build up the ledge and fill in behind the retaining wall. 

With the beds now marked out, I was also able to make just a start on the digging, simply cutting and turning over the soil around the edges of some of the beds. After the rain at the weekend, it was still rather squidgy in some places, so I had to pick and choose where to work.

Incidentally, who here can spot why I want to cover my back fence with flowers?