Shaping up

Cabbages & Cauliflowers went into my third and fourth beds respectively. A thin line of Florence fennel accompanied the Caulis. In amongst the Cabbage and tomato plants went a load of tine salads which my eldest had carefully planted.

I dug out (For the third time) a narrow strip of just shy of 2 metres by 5 metres. This was then supplemented with several bags of Wicks compost. Narrow trenches were cut into the strip width ways and my son and I plonked a load of Marris Peer seeds into the trenches before filling them back up.

There was still a gap left at the end as I only had enough for about three metres so in the gap we tightly planted the sweet corn we had raised a few weeks earlier and constructed a wigwam for the beans.

I had got to know quite a few more people by now. A couple named Barbara and Allen gave me more bean plants and so I returned the favour this time by donating some of the Swiss chard we had raised and some potato seed.

All the beans from home and the freebies were planted against the wigwam.

The tomatoes where putting on a good amount of growth so the support was changed to two foot canes and they where tied in. Barbara showed me how to keep them in check and half the plants seemed to disappear as we removed the side shoots. She also pointed out that I had tied in some of the branches instead of the central growth. Still they didn’t look too bad to me. And I was happy with the flowering.

Another two boxes were constructed and into on went four Defender F1 Courgette plants and a Spanish cucumber plant in the middle (Thanks again Barbara). Into the other went a dozen or so Strawberry plants.

We had a couple of deliveries where we could help ourselves to free fresh manure and the builders palates that everyone seems happy to use in constructing the must have compost pile.

I already had a small compost bin that I had salvaged together from an old broken plastic jobby. We have been collecting all the organic kitchen waste, garden cuttings and I have been collecting up all the free news papers that are handed out in London whilst at work. The bin was getting full so I would have to make something bigger shortly.

Three more beds where constructed. Into one went the beetroots, more salads, a bunch of radishes and the Chard. Into the next went some spring onions with the intention of growing more cabbage and caulis. The final one was lined with gardener’s membrane and filled with pebbles. The intention is to build this area into cold frame beds.

I stepped onto the bathroom scales. I had lost six kilos in weight in as many weeks. For the first time in a couple of years I noticed that my face had thinned out and I comfortable got into a pair of jeans I had never really felt like wearing because the tummy bulge meant the jeans got pushed down below the bulge and then the jean bottoms always got caught under my shoes as a walked. Stick that on your running machine LA fitness.

Not only that - everything on the plot was growing nicely and I could see the transformation taking place.