Mum and I pulled up a tonne of calendula from the front bed, plus what weeds would come up. I transplanted a few things like malope and gaillardia to the front bed and a couple of things to the right-hand side. A verbena went to the ledge and I tried to ignore the weeds already poking up through the compost.

We measured up the bed – which is more like 9′ x 6′ taking account of the logs that will edge it. When the beds are uncovered in the spring I’ll be able to count the logs and now the dimensions (+/- 5″ log sides). Mum then did an amazing job of digging the whole bed over. It now needs edging, edging, manuring and covering.

In tidying up the shed Mum found a couple of pieces of plastic, which covered the two open ends of beds. If I have a spare piece of edging once all the edging is done, I’ll extend this bed to 2’6″ wide. The earth is already dug to accommodate that.

In the afternoon I went back to the plot to get in more work before the sun set. I spread the latest big bag of coffee grounds all over bed 1, which covered it pretty well. There were lots of espresso blocks that needed to be crumbled first.

I took out the few remaining plants from the front bed and transplanted them to the right-hand side –  a few verbenas and a sunny calendula.

I did the rest of the weeding for the right-hand side and put one last verbena by the elder tree. I then smothered the whole lot with compost. I also put more compost on top of the nasturtium area of the bed and pulled up a few weeds from under the apple tree.

I did some major clearing in bed 7, pulling up all the calendulas and what weeds I could. Just a couple of malope and salvias I also found a dahlia that had been left behind. I knocked off a couple of damaged tubers and – rather than take it home for storage – I buried it over at the beginning of the right-hand bed and put a heap of compost on top to try and protect it. Not that it will protect it from flooding …

I used the new plant twine to make a temporary closure for the gate. There won’t be many more visits now, as this weekend has been wonderfully productive, but it’s pretty easy to open and close this. The gate catch is back in the shed for safekeeping.

It was pretty dark by the time I packed up and headed up the path with two big buckets of weeds.