2025 - What I did today

Started clearing a strip of ground (about 3' wide) in front of a 6' high chickenwire fence. My cunning plan is to stick some soft fruit cuttings (red & black currants) in the ground and create a new fruit bed. I'll be able to attach some bird netting to the wire and drop it down, over the fruit bushes. It won't stop the small birds but should stop the pigeons and blackbirds from pinching all the fruit - as they have this year.

I found a way by mishap of saving my redcurrants and blackcurrants from the birds on a previous allotment plot I had........nettles! I wasn't fastidious about the weeding and huge 6 foot high nettles grew through my currant bushes! Once I had pulled the nettles out, I had the best crop of soft fruit I've ever had!

Weeding VP 4 which is going to become the perennial veg plot. Already home to rhubarb, Taunton Deane perennial kale and a few 7 Star broccoli. Plus some fruit trees - a peach, 2 pears, 2 plums, and a blackcurrant bush.
Planted some potatoes in a tub.

Planted out some gasping dahlias. Harvested.

I've not been doing much in the garden this week as I've been working a fair bit, but I did get some flowers planted out, and I've been cutting slugs up. I might have been gloating I've not got many slugs here, but oh my goodness, the Spanish slugs are multiplying like mad! They eat absolutely everything, the ruddy things. So, I go out armed with a pair of scissors as often as I can, especially when it's raining. I must have cut 500 in the last two weeks. Persistance is key, right?

Me and Jay have been out splitting firewood today. Thankfully we have a pneumatic splitter, but it seems the power button is somehow stuck, so we didn't dare finish the last few bits.

Planted the small pot of Oca into a 30ltr pot as I knew that if it was planted in the ground I'd lose it!. Want to bulk up my stock of Oca for next year so wont be harvesting these. Also took cuttings off the foliage - now in a jamjar. Sowed carrot seeds around the Oca.
Planted some Arava melon seedlings and Dragon's Egg cucumbers in pots in GH1. Sowed "Oakleaf" lettuce with these.
Still light rain so not a day for outdoor work.

Work and cutting flowers