A beautiful day after a lot of rain and cloud. The plot was no longer underwater and not too squidgy, so that was good. The veronica by the pond had some flowers on it and I saw a creature of some kind in one of the pots, so there’s still life in this corner.

I’ve straightened the robin’s nestbox at last. The lining has ripped away so I don’t know whether it would be worth trying to make it more windproof. Moss maybe?

I had to cut back some very overlapping branches to get my ladder in and that led to my starting to prune the apple tree. It’s huge compared to what Matt reduce it to in early 2023. It’s going to get a big haircut this winter and I’ve made a start, with a pile of branches now growing on Bed 9. It’s difficult to see in the photo, but the fence side already lets me through more easily.

I dug the self-sown foxgloves out of Bed 11 and planted them in the boundaries. The antirrhinum from Bed 1 has gone into the front border and the coreopsis has been moved into the terracoota pot where the chive seeds never grew.

Mum and I covered most of the beds between us. Just Beds 1, 6, 7 and 11 to weed and finish off.

We’ve had a lot of rain and the plot was underwater for the first time this winter. Back to the old way of walking round the right hand side and/or just having soaking feet.

I pulled up all the carrots and all the beetroot. A couple of the carrots were white, which was weird. The beetroot were a mix of big and small; only a couple were a little damaged. The carrots were quite damaged by carrot fly, so need some doctoring. I should harvest them earlier for freezing. I also battled some more parsnips out of the ground, which are wonderfully crowded and a range of sizes.

There’s new fungus on the compost heap. It took a while to identify, but it’s wood blewit. It’ll fade to brown with age and often appears after the first frost, so that adds up.

I was accompanied by multiple blue tits and great tits while I finished weeding Beds 2, 4, 5 and 8, and then raked them over. Any good greens have been left to rot. They’ll be covered next week. The other beds aren’t that far off either, so I might get done next weekend if it’s dried up enough.

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