Awaiting the rain

I was hoping to spend a decent amount of time on the plot this week but when I mentioned this to a colleague at work, he broke the news to me that the weather forecast was not looking good. Rain forecast all weekend. This morning's news suggested that it would start to rain heavily here from 1300 onwards. Apart from a few spots earlier this morning, there is nothing but overcast skies and strong winds.

Given the weather predictions, I nipped over before 1200 to get one job done - dismantling the strawberry bed. See the before and after piccies below. I took the plants home to put in pots and the old leafs that I cut off were put aside for the compost heap.





On the topic of compost, I emptied one of the compost heaps onto the ground vacated by the strawberries. That patch is quite dry and hard now so I'll dig the compost in once the rain has done its thing.

Before leaving, I picked a few courgettes and pulled up a cabbage. Unfortunately, while inspecting the single butternut squash that seems to be growing, it came away in my hands. It was only about 3 inches long. It hadn't seemed to put on any growth for a while actually which is probably explained by the fact that it was only loosely connected to the plant. I picked a small cob of sweetcorn too but none of the plants look very healthy.

So, I took the strawberry plants home, out of the reach of the pesky strawberry thief. I have at least 23 plants (some are clustered and separation seemed impossible without harming them). I only planted those that clearly had new growth in the middle. I hope they like the peat-free compost. I had added some organic fertiliser to a couple of the pots last weekend. I'll add some to the other two pots another time. I threw 4 small ones plants (for the compost heap) - these didn't have new growth in the middle.

Bit of a catch up now. Early last week I cooked some achochas up (see piccie below).



They squeaked as I gathered them together in my hand. Inside, they were emptier than the ones I tried a few weeks ago. The seeds were easier to shake out and were very black. In the previous lot, I had to scoop flesh out with a spoon and then pick out the seeds. I have saved lots of seeds - plenty for seed swapping sometime. Achochas are ok but I don't think I'd bother buying their seeds again.