I had a much needed break over Xmas and – even though the weather was lovely and sunny for a couple of days – did no work on the plots.

My cunning plan for checking progress this year is going to be taking weekly pics on Sunday so I’ve got a photo record of progress.

The smaller plot looks good – all the work before Xmas in digging and manuring was worth it. The shot below is standing at the back of the plot. You can just about seen the currant bushes along the back border.  The large bed is where the potatoes were. The small scrappy yet to be dug and manured bit is where the oca is and it needs to be dug up. Over the far side between the compost bin and lavender is a manured bed of two rhubarb crowns.

Looking from the front you can see the herb bed on the left needs some attention as does the bit of ground to the right of the bags of manure. That’s the bit where I need to do some serious digging to remove some brambles.

Slightly closer view of those bits still needing work – herb bed on the left, bed of oca on the right and the brambles and bags of manure and bark chippings below.

The big plot needs some serious work!

View from the top of the plot – there’s a pile of old carpet behind the horizontally stacked pallets which needs to go and the brambles all along the bottom of fence could so with being taken out and replaced with heavier fruting cultivars.

And above – the view from the bottom of the plot. As you can see the fence on two sides has been more or less done and held up over winter.  There’s a series of small apple trees and currants planted along the fence to the right of the plot, and a morello cherry and more currants along the fence running across the top of the plot. There’s a small section of fence to be completed in the top left corner – but the pallet for that is already painted so I just need to fix the fence post and attach it.  All the stacked painted wood is to mark out some beds.

Key areas to work on here are to finish the small section of fence linking the new pallet fence to the railing at the bottom of the plot (see pic on left below).  I have the timber post and fence foot and a pallet which fits – I just need a dry day to paint them all.  Then there’s the epic brambles. They really need to come out and be replaced.

The giant pile of carpet and rubbish you can see above all came from just in front of the fence running the length of the plot – and was excavated in November when I dug that section over to plant the apples and currants. All the painted wood in the pic on the left above is for marking out beds.

So plenty there to keep me occupied.