The first thing of note I saw at the plot today was a big rat. I leant over my compost bins to check on the hole and mess being made by my compost bin inhabitant and as I did a big brown rat jumped out of that hole in the rright-handbin and disappeared underneath the shed. So that explains the amount of material that’s been displaced. I only hope that when we move the bins we don’t unearth a whole family, or village.

Over at the big heap of rubbish ,I’m currently making, there also looks to be an access tunnel to the middle of the pile. That didn’t take long.

First job after glaring at the rat under the shed was cutting of the apple branch that had gone through the fence. I can otherwise about get round the tree, but maybe next year I’ll try and trim back those back branches a bit more to give myself a bit more space.

I dug over the little bed and remeasured it. After neatening/weeding the edges, it had grown six inches to 4′ x 2.5′. Since I currently only have 12″ logs, I laid out the bed as 4 x 2. If convenient, I’ll halve a log and add the extra 6″ later.

I did huge amounts of pulling and digging up, and cutting down. I’ve got rid of most of the borage (even the stuff that was green and full of new flower buds), candytuft and viper’s bugloss. I did the rounds, pulling up all the nigella I could find. Though I know from subsequent path-walking that there’s still plenty out there to be pulled up.

I’ve also started cutting down the lemon balm, which has revealed quite a mess in plum corner. When I do the same in the front bed, it’s going to reveal a horrendous mess of grass coming through the fence. I’m wondering if I can somehow use the bendy lawn edging to hold back the grass.

I took home an apple, some chard and another dahlia tuber I dig up. I”d missed the plant yesterday, but I put the fork straight through the main tuber in digging it up.

I wanted to do more than one bed, so in the afternoon I went back and made a start on the angelonia bed. I measured it out and dug the edge, turning it into the middle. The line’s a bit wonky, but I’ll sort it out with the edging.