The blue bed is DONE! Yippeeeeeeee!!!!! It took me 6 hours and I hurt all over. I am going to have the longest, hottest shower, a glass of something lovely and a stonkingly good dinner. I have earned it.

It’s not so much digging as hoiking out a spit or two of soil, getting up some hefty tree roots and a lot of old carpet and polystyrene and going through it by hand. I’d do a simpler dig if I knew more about what I was doing, but I know that soil is infested with creeping buttercup, brambles and blackthorn, as well as couch grass, so I reckon it might pay to do things slowly and well. At least that’s what I tell myself when I see how slow my progress is compared to others on the site.

I’d forgotten quite how gorgeous the site is in the evenings. The blackthorn’s scent comes over really strongly in the evening, there are masses of birds singing their hearts out, the digging seemed easier and my cloud of Autan kept the evil biting things off me for once.

The spuds aren’t in though. They are still in the boot. I topped up the bed with a couple of bags of my topsoil and there were red ants nests in each. It was as good an excuse as any to scarper, and I honestly didn’t have the energy to put the spuds in. Will have to do them Monday before work as we’re off to see Small Child tomorrow for her and Him Indoors’s birthdays. She’ll be 11, despite how he sometimes acts, he’ll be considerably older.

Lionel gave me some rhubarb, so there will be crumble tonight too. Oh yes. One of my rhubarbs looks like it hasn’t made it through winter, so I will need to get a replacement soon. In the revised plan the rhubarb will go behind the greenhouse so it’s sheltered, but still gets sun.

At home, potted up some nasturtiums, noticed that the Charlottes planted 23 March are peeping through and shoved more things onto the balcony to harden off. The jackdaw have pulled out all of the radishes *sigh*, so I’ll need to do those again. Sowed a 42L trug with rainbow carrots, also sowed summer PSB and tuscan kale. If I have any energy after dinner I will sow some toms and look for the blasted celery seeds.