Last raised bed

I picked up some strawberries the other week and this weekend I was going to plant them in the raised beds, until the weather forecast suggested frost, snow, and strong winds.  A bit of a reminder that while it has been quite warm with clear skies for a couple of days, it is still winter.

It will be Easter in a couple of weeks and I expect the allotments to be full of people over that time busy planting and sorting things out.  Before that happens, I still had a last raised bed that needed emptying and re-positioning, I had to stop last week when the amount of sticky mud was just everywhere in the cold and wet.   While snow and wind was forecast, I got up early to get this last bit done.  It wasn’t cold and strangely at the top of the hill on the plot it wasn’t too windy either.

I moved the raised bed, lining it with the millions of newspapers that we still have and putting down a bit of soil to stop the paper flying about.  It didn’t take long, and while there were two bucket fulls of weeds, it was a lot less than the previous bed.   All this has gone into the incinerator for burning hopefully next week.   I did a bit of hoeing around the raspberries and gooseberries to get rid of weeds that were starting to appear.  In doing so I discovered a third rhubarb crown starting to show, which is really good news.

Each week I keep thinking everything is done and now it is just waiting for warmer times (on Tuesday they say) to uncover everything and do some planting.  Each week I find yet another job to do, but I really do think this time it is now all ready to go – apart from some burning of further cuttings and weeds.

Suddenly the plot is looking a lot larger and less cluttered.    The snow did eventually come, but nothing set and it didn’t get in the way.

 

The regular garlic photo, quite pleased to see their slow progress

 

Two raised beds and some extra space dug over

 

It feels like it is all ready to go for the year

 

 

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