2023 - What I did today

Lots of showers here today, in between, I labelled the dahlias as potential frost tonight.

Did some weeding. Cutting down asparagus and mint and some finished flowers. Emptied a couple of fish boxes that had some old woody broccoli & kale in. Finally finished planting the daffodils. Can’t believe how much the multiplied in just a year. Also mowed the little lawn at our temporary home.

Concentrated my efforts on lifting the slices of wood that formed a path beside the old pond. I'd keep them if they weren't so slippery when wet. They're starting to rot now and, if I can get the fork in the right place, bits of log break off. Quite satisfying, especially when the log has been chipped away enough to get the fork under it and lift it out. Unfortunately, instead of just avoiding stepping on slippery wood, I now have to avoid chunks of rotten wood and cunningly disguised holes in the ground. I think there's a plastic membrane under the path too which I want to remove as I want to grow something there next year. The courgettes did well in the sunken pond this year, so I'll probably grow them there next year.

Took out the last of my GH Tom plants standing buckets of winter lettuce in their place.
Later on pulled up french beans and canes.

A morning of digging up more logs and rocks and moving them into heaps. Not sure yet how I'm going to reuse them or the layout of the old pond bed and its surroundings. I'm hoping that the shape will "speak" to me as I continue clearing.

Cut back a buddleia that was getting too enthusiastic, shredded the arisings and bagged them up for paths or compost substrate. Whilst the shredder was out I chopped off a few water spouts from the apple trees. They were jolly lucky that P said he didn't want to cope with logs or they might have had more enthusiastic haircuts.

Pulled up finished courgettes and cucumbers.

Spent a few hours cleaning strawberry runners ready for the fridge. The cold will make them dormant ready for potting Feb.

Spent a few hours cleaning strawberry runners ready for the fridge. The cold will make them dormant ready for potting Feb.

Never thought of doing that, I'm off to research.

When my strawberries finished fruiting I ' Stocking topped' them taking off all the old foliage. After a while new foliage started to grow, and this is when I split the plants up.

My strawberries all come from an original mixed punnet of six different varieties.The were split up a couple of years ago and gave good results. I have recently spit up the plants again and made two new beds with the plantlets, some were runners, but others were broken off the originals with a small amount of root attached. I still have loads to split up and plant out yet.