Well we are really motoring now! The kestrel potatoes are well under way and will soon get earthed up, seedlings are growing strong, my tomatoes are over 10 inches tall and the previously wind damaged sweetcorn is looking better than ever.

The plot is starting to feel very homely now, like some space that is genuinely mine, rather than someone else’s plot that I have taken over. The framed beds give everything a sense of order, the fruit cage looks so much better but the final cherry on the cake is in the sign at the front of the plot, written by my wife:

I have also been making some substantial progress inside the fruit cage; all the roots have been dug out along with all the larger pieces of rubble and I have started to dig over the space. It’s just large clods at the moment but in time I will break them up and level the ground off, then I want to source some manure from somewhere, put down a good couple of inches and leave it for a year under polythene to rot in and make the soil much more workable.

Once I have some black sheet down on this area I may put a few temporary planters in here with strawberries in for this season, then next year I can start to plant this area out properly, but I think filling the soil with organic matter and giving it a feed then letting it rest so the worms can get to work will be worth the wait. If I pile in now and try to make it how I want for this year, everything will be rushed and the soil just isn’t good at the moment, not after all those years of all those brambles pulling out anything of any value.

So there we have it. All of the big changes are complete really, and we’re down to the fine detail. I still have all the brambles that I cut down, piled up and waiting to be removed, but we have been banned from having a bonfire now, so I shall have to wait until the local recycling centre opens and I can take it all there. Tedious, but there we are.

All I need now is a shed…