It was blue skies and sun, cold but warm when the sun was on you. That was the day before, today at the plot it was cold, windy and wet. I had a bit of time, about two hours, before it really did start raining. The main thing I wanted to get done was to plant out the onion sets, I bought two bags of 50 during the previous weekend. Before I did this, I wanted to lightly dig in a bit of home made compost.

The two compost bins I rebuilt last year have been serving me well, one side just sitting doing not much but rotting down while the other side adding new material throughout the year. On the rotting down side it continued to sink down over the months, the current side goes down and back up again as I add things to it. Upon uncovering the rotted down side (it had layers of cardboard covering it), and removing the top layer of garden cuttings (cuttings that clearly do not rot down that fast) I was presented with some earthy smelling good looking compost. Sure, there were buts of wood in it, the larger bits I put in the current bin. Mostly though it was soft and warm and ready to be used. I added four bucket loads to what would be the onion bed, hoed it in slightly and raked it level.

There is a lot more left, I’ll put this on the beds another time which will allow me to switch over and use that as the current bin and leave what was the current bin to rot down for next year. That’s the first real time I’ve made enough to be of any use for the whole plot. It is hopeful for next year as that bin contains a lot of the shredded up cuttings I’ve made in the summer.

I planted five rows of onion sets, just under 100. They are next to the over wintering ones and covered to stop birds pulling them out before that have got established.

I hadn’t been to the plot for a couple of weeks and so I did a fair bit of tidying up and weeding. I pulled up the sprouts and picked some baby sprouts off while I was at it. Maybe I could have left them in the ground for a little bit longer. I cut a lot of purple sprouting and pulled some of the leeks. As I thought, as soon as March comes about they start to recover from the winter and so was able to pick some decent ones. They are all going to be quite small, but then I planted them in clumps which meant they were never going to get massive. I don’t think I’ll bother with that this year, just plant them in a normal row.

I had taken coffee and biscuits but it was really pouring with when by that point, so I went home.

During the week I had sowed leeks and five rows of different types of lettuce, in seed trays, on the window sill.