On Saturday, despite some disappointments (lack of wood and compost) we were rearing and ready to get to the plot. Then Mum’s knee went out from under her, it’s a thing, it’s happened before and she was not happy about it.

So new plan. I left her in the street to hobble home and went to the plot. Well not quite. I did leave her to go to the plot, so I could dump the contents of the bokashi bin into the compost and pick some rhubarb! Then I went back to help her walk home, Ma has a pretty high pain tolerance so if she’s telling us she’s in pain and can’t walk, it’s really bad. We got home, iced the knee and had a nice quiet Saturday.

So the next morning, I left the house when Ma went home and headed to the plot. I watered everything and re-upped the bird feeders. My plan was to strim which I started and then the strimmer stopped working. It’s an easy fix I have a replacement bit at home! So I tidied up, weeded the rhubarb and gooseberries, removed the raspberries from where they aren’t supposed to be (I’m beginning to think that they are actually triffids!), did a bit of path weeding and planted the phlox Ma bought last week.

At home, I potted on the tomatoes, echinacea and basil.

We are pretty behind where I intended to be at this point. The weather is weird, it’s really still to cold for the summer plants and there is a dearth of compost and wood so I can’t really get on with building the other beds or filling the ones that are already built and to be honest, I’m not too worried. If I end up direct sowing the squash plants, at the end of the month when I do the french beans and cucumbers, then I do. It might mean that we don’t have as long to eat summer squash or as many winter squash as I’d like but as Ma keeps pointing out (annoyingly), we aren’t subsistence farmers, this isn’t the only food we have access to and it’s not our livelihood. We’ll be disappointed but it really won’t kill us and we’ll have next year to get it right. Something will grow.

On the plot right now, there are berries on the gooseberries and blackcurrant bushes, the rhubarb is abundant, there are broad beans and peas coming up, the beetroot and carrots are beginning to show, as are the potatoes, the garlic, onions and shallots are all doing ok and there is blossom on the plum and apple trees, and the blueberry bushes. There are even flowers on the strawberry plants. It might not be as generous as last year but it’ll give us something.

One of the areas of the plot I’m most proud of is the pond and rose garden. I’m ok at growing food but I’m not that great with flowers, although I’m trying to work on that to help the pollinators. This area of the plot, I made up all by myself, I moved rose bushes and plants and dug a pond and hoped for the best. And it’s not perfect but I think it’s looking pretty good.

I think it’s maturing nicely with it’s ‘chuck it all in’ design and I’m looking forward to seeing how it fills out.

Last year we bought a bunch of bulbs and because the soil was so dry and hard to dig into, ended up throwing bulbs into the bed near the plum tree, we’ve designated that bed the bulb bed and we have narcissi, daffodils, crocuses and tulips in there. I think there are also irises in that bed that we are waiting on and this mystery (in that I can’t remember what it called) allium. I. moved some of the white tulips into this bed and I’ll also move the other tulips on the plot into the bed too. There is no planning in this bed either but I’m really fond of it’s chaos, especially as the californian poppies go mad in that bed!