Leaves everywhere

I was faced with a thick sea of leaves when I arrived at the plot late in the afternoon. My plan was to tidy up the sprouts and to light a fire to burn bits of rubbish collected over the year. I got the fire going and started to rake up the leaves and added to the compost, filling the compost which over the coming week will sink back down again.

The winter onions had all sprouted and the netting over the top was no longer needed. I planted some garlic too and it was hard to work out if one of the rows was the garlic or a row of onions. Give it a couple more weeks and I’m sure I will see the difference. The broad beans planted the other week are yet to show.

Being winter and being late afternoon, the light was fading, I still had lots to do and the fire was still burning quite strong. I sorted the sprouts out by re-staking them and removing all but the top leaves. The plants are not very tall which was a bit unexpected, maybe they are “not tall” variety, they seem to have plenty of sprouts on them. Having tidied them up they looked a lot better, a lot more light and air getting round them.

I pruned the raspberries, cutting out the old wood and bits of new wood that were in the way. A rushed it at the end as by now it was quite dark with light from the fire showing me the way. I put the lid on the fire with the aim to dampen it down a bit and after a bit the flames had gone leaving just glowing embers. I cleared anything combustible from around the incinerator so everything would be left safe.

I arrived early the next day to find the fire still warm, after a bit of prodding about flames re-appeared. The sun was not fully up and it was pretty cold and so this was all quite welcoming. The reason for the early start was to make use of time before the rest of the day and wheelbarrow over some more woodchip that had been delivered to the plot. I was able to give the paths a second lot of chipping plus re-cover the large area by the tool chest and compost bins.

Even though I had cleared leaves the day before, the plot was once again covered in them and so I racked them up once again. The compost bin was overflowing with leaves by now, I covered it with cardboard and I’m sure within a couple of weeks it will have had rotted down again.

This weekend I was able to pick: