Bed 2 was my focus today, but I did some other odd jobs too, like finally changing the bungee cord on the shed door and better covering the pile of compost in the middle bed.

The plot was under water in a number of places and very muddy everywhere. I managed to weed Bed 2 a bit just by carefully pulling stuff out, including buttercups and their long roots. I evened out the soil and then laid a double layer of newspaper and thin cardboard / thick paper.

I then pinned the black plastic over the top, but not too firmly, in case I feel like adding more newspaper later on.

I had scraped off lumps of yellow clay from the bed and from other beds too. That’s just an ongoing job, trying to clear up what’s been dumped.

It was a very frosty morning, which meant that the ground was too hard to do any weeding, digging or moving. Mum brought down a couple of new sacks of compost and changed the suet coconut.

The hard frost meant gave good proof that the coreopsis is indeed hardy and must have been there for more than one season. It’ll be nice to see it next summer, supported by the edge of the bed, rather than sprawling over the grass.

I found one job to do and filled in the hole at the front of the front bed, lining the depth with lumps of horrid clay and then leaves from my bin, before filling in the rest with compost.

Most of the visit was spent documenting exactly which jobs need to be done to which beds. I also took a good photo of each bed, so I can refer to them at home. There are a couple of beds that it would be good to do some small-scale work to and then cover them until the spring, giving the weeds a good chance to die. I can’t do weeding now that the ground is so saturated. By the end of my visit, the frost was thawing and I was skidding about in the mud again.

It really hit me today, how much work I have ahead of me. Getting these beds back into working order is going to be a huge job.

I’ve done about half the length of the outside of the fence, putting down edging pieces in the trough between the fence and the grass. The grass will still come through, but I hope to at least slow it down. The grass that I took out from under the frames was already certainly weakened.

The two robins were back and it was when they sitting on neighbouring fenceposts that I realised that I’d forgotten my phone. So I went back home for it, the first frustration of tools never being where I wanted them today. This is the closest I could get them together, but they were back following me around. My guess is that the one in the bed is the usual one and the one on the shed is the newcomer.

Along with the realisation of the work ahead comes the decision to put an inner edge of cardboard around all the beds. Even if the beds haven’t been put on grass, I want put up the best defence possible.

With all the clay removed and the plants tidied and fluffed up, I put 10 Hotpants pink and white tulip bulbs in the front left corner, and filled the rest of the gaps with 20 mixed double narcissi bulbs. On top went a whole bag of Levington’s compost, which turned out to be absolutely lovely stuff. Let’s hope it stays good for more beds and next year’s pottings.

I’ve made a start on tidying up Bed 3 first, as it won’t get covered and needs some bulbs planting in it very soon. It’s a bit of a mess where earth and clay have been heaved onto the bed and plants during the hole digging process.

The good news though is that I suddenly have two robins in the plot. They’re not getting aggressive with each other, so let’s hope that they might move in to the nest box behind the apple tree.

This frame had been put down onto the grass, which I don’t want heading straight into the bed, so I cut it away and pulled it out. I’ve then put a section of cardboard in at the edge to keep a barrier and to allow me to fill the bed. Very hard work.

I’m gathering the clay I take off the beds and putting what I can into place that don’t matter. For example, the sometimes over-sized post holes and the front of the front border, which now has a big trough that needs filling.

Not enormously visible work, but the recovery of the grass in one week is pretty impressive.

I think 8am might be the earliest I’ve been at the allotment. I followed Leo out of the estate with my wood on his van. I was able to take this panorama before the day’s work began and everything changed.

I pulled up all the chard and remaining beetroot, not least to get them out of the way of big feet. At least some of the beetroot will be usable. With that, the harvests for 2021 are all done.

Parts of the allotment were underwater from rain last night and it didn’t take long for the green grass to be turned into mud. Mum brought down my new door mat, which was helpful for going in and out of the shed, and I scurfed up the old one and all its grass.

The post holes made for securing the bed frames were all full of water, so the waves of liquid mud were amusing to watch when being refilled. The original plan had been for concreting the posts, but I nixed that when I got wind of it.

The robin only turned up when the guys left to get wood, and at the end of the day. On the first visit I treated him to some mealworms. Mum had brought down a new suet coconut too, as the first had been emptied.

It was too wet to attempt any weeding, but I found some jobs to do around the place. I mulched where I’d weeded before on the left boundary. Maybe a third of the bed remains to be weeded and mulched, assuming the ground dries out enough at some point.

I also sorted our latest collection of hügel sticks, chucking out anything I couldn’t break. I have a couple of armfuls of larger pieces which I need to bring home to break down further with some tool or other.

I’d left the bed edging in place so as to show where the edges were, but then the first job was to take them up. I was taking them up nicely, scraping them off a little and stacking them. The guys pinged them up (faster) with a spade and heaved them down the side of the shed. I’m hoping that the coming rain might wash them off a little and then I’ll make a nicer pile.

I’m sure I have too many of them, but I have one use in mind already: filling the strange hole at the bottom of the outside of my fence. I cut the grass back from the fence on the outside and I need to put some weedkiller on the grass that’s right on the fence line. Then I want to put a layer of one or two pieces in the groove.

The beds were done by around 3pm, with the poor grass looking a bit worse for wear. I’ll be in touch with Leo early next year with regard to evening the ground and turfing it. I took the opportunity today to dig out a bunch of dandelions and buttercups between the edging coming up and the beds going down. When the grass is cleaner and easier to see, I also plan to put weedkiller on other weeds and on anything that looks like it has been caught underneath the frames.

I’ve got lots of work ahead of me and since I don’t know if or when the ground will dry off a bit this side of Christmas, I’m not sure yet what my plan is. Some of the beds hadn’t been weeded yet, but with the ground being dug up, those weeds are now a bit churned up. It might be that they get proper cardboard covering rather than weeding. There are also going to be decisions to be made about spreading leaves and sticks, and where and how deep etc. So some sun and drainage would be helpful.

Today was compost heap day. Suzy and did a grand job and heaved all the newer top layers out onto a sheet on the back bed. This year’s very recent additions were easy to move and then gradually it became more of an endeavour. Taking the front off the heap showed good layers and then we started digging out the proper compost, making two big piles of really well rotted material. Any big pieces were thrown back on the pile to go round again.

Digging down far enough we were able to clear the compost from the wrong side of the posts and tied the chicken wire tightly to them to stop the sides bulging out so much. Neater and better airflow. The green wire doesn’t last all that long, but it’s a good start.

The robin was all around us while we worked, thoroughly enjoying the various things we were digging up. The strata of compost were interesting and it was good to find that although there were a few pads of grass stuck together, you’d never guess that there was 6 years’ worth of mowings in there. We also found some ornamental gourds, from probably 4 years ago, which could finally be broken down and crumbled. By no means were all the gourds found though, which just shows that this does all break down eventually – oh, but not fruit stones just yet.

We scrapped out a bit more than this, but have left the more compacted stuff. The pile at the back was diminished and spread out so as to mix with what we put back. Suzy heaved forkfuls from the pile into the heap and I trod it down to make sure no more pesky holes would form.

The compost heap has now gone from stuffed full to less than half full. We’ve done a great job, but it’s also quite nice to know that it won’t be worth again doing for a few years yet.

We ended up with two big heaps of compost and had managed to keep the grass pretty clean with the sheets we used. A number of sticks from the heap were added to the hugel stick pile and then in the afternoon we went to gather more from the park.