nothing green is growing through (so at least I’ve eliminated the couch grass…)

Bed 3:
Under construction between bed 1 and 2 – will be two rows of dug soil for herbs.

Raised beds – these are manure (mainly fresh) covered over with straw (in the no digg method)

Bed 1: Empty
Bed 2: Three varieties of spuds, leftover onions and a small rubarb crown.
Bed 3: Empty
Bed 4: No manure or straw – Considering turning this into a plain soil bed for my three sisters planting.

We also have four straw tyres for potatoes (yes will be inundated with spuds…)

I’ve dug a small pond (not sure if I’m allowed it) and planted with watercress and some normal weed which I’m hoping will shelter some life to entice frogs… It is close to the compost heap and I’ve heaped some branches and cardboard to make a shelter nearby. I’ve also found an old connifer log, drilled it with size 8-16mm holes for beasties such as bees, ladybirds & spiders etc.

I’ve got three oak logs I’m hoping to drill this coming week and infect with shiitake mushroom pegs which I’ll probably plant inside a rack of tyes (this’ll ensure that no animals get at them, they get shade and tyres tend to catch rainwater and produce a moist atmosphere – this is entirely new, unresearched tip from myself. We’ll see if it works!)

First set of scouts came down this weekend and helped me unload the ton of manure from the back of the fiesta – muchly appreciated. I told them about the fundraising plans I intend for them to participate in (we’re looking at growing pumpkins this year to raise money for the group)

I’m stealing my water butt I was donated at my last job which I intend to rig to water my plants and run a solar water cress plant from (see my details later in the summer about this!)

We still have over half the plot left for digging. So far we have 18m2 of planting area, which doesn’t sound much but when you’re having to shift the whole lot to remove couch grass it feels like we’re always digging!