16 September - Bedtime

A quick blog of today's plot events. As reported yesterday, the late lamented Pumpking left some deserving relatives who have rallied to the cause. We made soup today of the pumpkin flowers we harvested yesterday which was fine if a tad exotic. Apparently, you can eat pumpkin leaves too - they stirfry etc just like other greens. Also you deserve a brief weather update. It has been lovely, early September weather - sunny and warm and very inviting, though no rain.

N went to the plot and began the task of assembling the wood to make the bed where the potatoes had grown. Prior to that, we had gone to Homebase and acquired a corner shed tidy thingie for our tools - a tidy shed is a tidy mind and all that. By the time I arrived, one side had already been assembled out of three long planks nailed to a corner batten. I did some subsidiary digging in the bed to enable accurate placing of this first element of the bed, and matters proceeded apace, so that we have three sides of our first properly protected bed. The soil is piled together in a heap in the middle until we dig it properly. The plan is to have a walkway across the middle in order to reach the crops. The wood is fantastic.

There was also much remedial raspberry cage business which resulted in a cracked cane as the wind is getting up - the raspberries are coming into their prime and there are many more than we thought there would be.

I pondered long and hard about the poor seedlings I had transported up from our conservatory still in their peat pots. They are manifestly too small to plant out according to the books, yet I am unsure as to where they should be right now they have started to emerge as they are meant to be "overwintering". After a while, I remember the protecting cloche/hoop thingie we had bought ages ago, and put the seedlings in their peat pots and in trays underneath it in the bed with the sprouts and celery. This will give them warmth and protection whilst allowing them a bit more time to grow and us time to prepare their eventual home. Other than that, I guess I could always plant seeds direct but that would be a great waste of the time and effort taken to grow them indoors. I am beginning to think more positively about the bed option for our plot.

Following our time on the plot, we then adjourned to The Neighbours for a gorgeous Sunday lunch/dinner and lots of wine. We had some of our peas as an hors d'ouevre - nothing sweeter or fresher has ever been tasted.