I had hoped to had spent the evenings during the week finishing off the second bed, but the weather and other things meant it did not happen. However, early on Good Friday I did the last couple of sides and if I forgive a centimetre or too misalignment I did not have to cut another sleeper. The new sleepers are about 1cm longer and wider than advertised which means things are not as neat as they could be, but its not a huge problem.

Good Friday turned out to be “the hottest day of the year so far”, although for our garden it did not match 17c at lunch time earlier on in the week.

I sorted out the mound of soil in the second bed, this is mostly rotted down horse manure and so it quite nice. I’m not sure if I will need to get some compost to fill the first bed a little bit higher or if I can share some from the other bed and add what we have in our garden compost. There is also a patch that needs re-turfing and so the top layer of that can be added too.

We had a nice trip out to Burgess Hill, stopping off at the garden centre for a pork pie and a cup of coffee. The real reason for going was to pick up some paving which was not in stock locally. The plan was to have paving down the middle with a load of shingle or pebbles along each side for drainage. We put down a layer of a mix of sand and cement which we wetted and put the paving on top.

The next morning, apart from the odd cat footprint on the paving, it had all set. We still had gaps between the paving and so I poured a bit more of the mixture and sprinkled water over it and left to set for the day. Down the side I put a load of chippings which were meant to have a slight hint of green but looks more like white. Possibly after it has rained a bit it will wash them off a bit and we will get our bit of green.

I still had the problem of one of the beds only being half full. I was thinking I would need to buy some compost to fill it but it was not needed. I transferred excess soil from the other bed and also emptied our garden compost. This compost was started a couple of years ago and had rotted down well, full of worms too. Between the two, the bed was now full.

Straight away, I planted a row of second early potatoes (the rest I had already planted at the plot) but before the weekend is finished I will sow the carrots and beetroot.