My gate was open when I got to the plot to do what were supposed to be some quick errands. It fastened perfectly well behind me and it turned out that it was indeed a sign that I’d had intruders. But, unable to see through my cloudy windows anymore, they’d tried to break in through the door. Half the left hand panel was broken, but still in place and the door had been ripped away from the top of the diagonal support.

I’d not been down for a couple of weeks, but we’ve had some very heavy rain and there was no sign of dampness inside, which makes me wonder if this happened recently, maybe even last night.

I did a video call home to confer on the damage and then Mum came down to help me do a temporary repair, screwing the top of the door to the horizontal support and adding a piece of wood inside to help close the crack back together.

On the positive side, all my garlic is up and growing well, and the robin kept me company all the while. He was standing in a gap in the fence (now repaired, in case it worked as a foothold) when I checked around the plot and didn’t leave my side while I video called home. He took some persuading to get out of the shed.

I opened up Bed 11 and found that all the poppies had completely rotted away, leaving beautiful soil. I must think more about green manure and possibly leaving beds open for the crop to be killed by frost. This would help build up the bed filling without just buying compost all the time.
(There are two robins in this picture: one in the bed and one on the post on the other side of the chicken wire.)

I added a sprinkling of coffee from my full 20 litre bucket, and I need to add a layer of compost to it.

I put coffee over where I’d weeded on the right and moved some cornflowers into the gaps. One is particularly big. Hopefully they’ll now self-seed in the boundary bed.

The new coconut (which I’d tied to the tree after yesterday’s theft) was on the floor and pecked clean. Seems like I might not be able to put up any more without some kind of crow prevention.

In the afternoon I weeded the triangle, constantly accompanied by the robins. I pulled up the kalette and chopped it up for the compost. I’m hoping a bird might notice all the whitefly and enjoy a snack.

The garlic was almost all up this morning, so I watered the bed as we’ve not had rain in a while.

My friend the robin arrived in the tree as soon as I went to hang up the new coconut. A coconut that was entirely missing when I went back in the afternoon, most likely stolen by the crow that came into the plot a couple of times. I had both robins bobbing about; one of them likes to stand on the fencepost right by the nest box.

I weeded all along the trellis bed and into the triangle. The soil is not bad for weeding at the moment. I’ve made room near the gate so I can transplant some of the cornflowers from Bed 7.

In the afternoon we put 2 bags of manure on Bed 1. Half a bag went onto Bed 5 and the other half went onto Bed 4, leaving a little to finish from another bag. All those beds got coffee grounds.

I did the last verbena cutting down this morning. I was clever enough to wear a glove, so didn’t get scratched to death for once. The cutting down is now all done. Now it’s a matter of weeding and getting the winter grass out, but the ground isn’t very crumbly yet, so it wouldn’t be easy to start now.

I can imagine making a bit of space in the left bed, so that would be a good place to put a number of the cornflowers that have overwintered in Bed 7.

While I wait for the ground to loosen up a little more, I think the next job needs to be getting manure into the low beds. I’ll need a lot of bags to bring the level, so need to make a start on that. I also want to mulch the borders with manure as they could do with some care.

I took Matt and Sam down to the allotment this morning and let them loose on the fruit trees. Sam didn’t take much off the pear, but Matt happily did some major pruning on the apple tree in just a few minutes. The main branch was cut off cleanly with just a couple of strokes. Also particularly pleasing: the smaller branches were put on my compost heap, but cut up first, not just dumped.

I stayed behind after they’d gone and finished the cutting down along the right hand side. Tomorrow I’ll be scratching myself silly when I attack the verbenas.

The first tete a tete is out now, with more fattening up. Lots of bulbs have come up, but I’m not entirely sure what’s what yet. I think the irises are up in a ring around the middle.

I did lots of cutting down, along the ledge and the trellis bed. I made nesting material coconuts for the beds with dry grass and moss, as well as lots of the thing twiggy fleabane cuttings.

I’ve discovered that the toadflax is fairly shallow rooted. I’ve pulled up some that was clearly in the wrong place but I’m happy that I’ll be able to take out more pretty easily later in the year if I want to.

I’ve taken down all the helianthus too – all but the thickest stems just snapped off at ground level. The lemon balm has grown back into the area that the helianthus covers, but there’s no way I can get it out now, so I don’t care.

I harvested all the remaining parsnips. They were mostly little ones, but a couple were reasonable and good for a roast dinner. I might try them again another year.

We delivered 3 bags of compost to the plot today. Looking around at the beds, lots more compost and manure will be needed to bring most of the beds somewhat higher. I need to make sure I use the cheaper manure where bulk is particularly needed.

Bed 8 only needed one bag this year though. I think the blackbird had already kicked it about a bit when I went back after lunch. Two whole bulbs of garlic have gone it. They’re 4″ in from the sides and the cloves are 6″ apart, except at each end, where I’ve put 4 remaining little cloves into the final gaps.

First visit to make a start on cutting down dead stalks. I shall have loads of awful grass and weeds to get rid of, so I need to make a start. The robin came to see me before I’d had time to do much at all.

By the end of my visit though, I’d cut down most of the stalks on the left hand side.

I discovered that the rat has been sharpening its teeth along the fence side of my shed, as well as a little bit by the door. So I’ve refilled the trap and cleared out the compost that has been sitting between the heap and the shed. I scraped out a bucketful, including a bunch from the bottom of the heap.

This compost has gone on as a layer on Bed 8 before the garlic is planted.

The apple tree is looking as wild as usual, but the tree surgeon is booked to give it a fright in 2 weeks’ time. I’m hoping for some drastic improvement.

The water has receded a great deal now, but I’m still being careful walking around so as not to damage the paths. Patches near the shed in particular are going to need re-seeding, but I’ve still got half a sack of seed, so that’s not a problem.

Mum covered the remaining beds, while I spent forever digging out another long parsnip. It looks like the rest of them won’t be anything like as big, and so will be much easier pull-up harvests. Bed 7 has only been half-covered, leaving the big cornflowers in place. I’m hoping to be able to move them somewhere else in better weather. Trellis bed, maybe?

The kalette plant has continued to grow, but when I pulled off a reasonably sized kalette, it turned out to be absolutely full of whitefly. So ultimately it’ll just end up on the compost heap, but it can stay standing for now in case a pigeon wants to nibble it.

We’ve managed to insert a sheet of plastic between the left-hand water butt and the wall of the shed. It’s leaning and when full it’s been leaking out of the top and running down the side of the shed. I’m concerned it’s done some damage, but that’ll have to wait until spring to be dealt with. The shed could do with being re-painted anyway.

At home, the mystery currant is just starting to show tiny signs of growth.

A Boxing Day visit. We’ve had a lot of rain, but it paused for a day or so, so I went down to the plot – and fell over in the mud before I’d even reached my gate. Before the rain we had heavy snow, which saw off the chard at last. Not much else in the garden has been defeated yet.

I shall leave the kalettes in place until the spring, but at this point I’m not convinced they’re going to do much more than this. The individual sprouts are not up to much.

I cleared the chard and covered Bed 2, and ripped up the last few candytuft plants and covered Bed 9 too. The ground was getting somewhat churned up, so I didn’t pursue too much work.

Bed 3 has more bulbs coming up in it. It still clearly needs more compost in it, but with the bulbs all in place, I can’t just dump it in. I’m hoping I can continue to gradually creep it in around them during the year.

I decided to pull up a parsnip and was delighted  to find that the first one I came to had quite a big head. It then took ages to dig up because it was so long that it went down through the compost and into the clay, reaching the current water level! I took out the little one next to it too.  The big one was 7.5″ of parsnip plus about 12″ tail; the smaller one was about 5″ long.