Sunday however was a much more productive day. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was going to clear the area next to the pond ready for sowing a mini wildflower meadow as well as planting bulbs and a couple of shrubs. I have decided that next year I'm not going to allow it to grow completely wild because it did end up looking quite messy albeit that it was good cover for anything coming out of the pond. I easily cleared the right side of the area because the mole had been doing it's work there and as a result the weeds just pulled up really easily and I could get my fork into the ground to remove some of the roots. I planted my hydrangea next to the wood pile because I decided that will still give good cover in that area and it will look nice close to the shed. I should also note that I didn't clear the ground elder from in and around the wood pile as I didn't want to disturb anything hiding in there. The left side of the pond however was a nightmare. The ground is so hard I can hardly get my fork into it, never mind trying to dig out all of the roots. I had already pulled up all of the leaves before I realised so I can't even spray with my Richard Jackson's Weed Killer (which as you know I use sparingly). I will therefore need to think about how I'm going to deal with that moving forwards. On the plus side I did discover a few plants that I put in last winter that appear to have survived being covered over so hopefully I'll have a little bit of colour while I'm sorting it all out.
I also managed to harvest my onions on Sunday evening. I was really pleased with the crop and they're currently drying in the polytunnel. I watched a YouTube video from 'GrowVeg' about how to harvest and store onions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py2kPbSsgmA
As suggested I will leave them for a week and once the skins are dried and flaky I'll have a go at hanging them. I've never done it before so I'm hoping it will turn out ok. I've got a mixture of sizes but I like to roast onions sometimes so the small ones I'll just throw straight into the mixed veg drawer for roasting and the rest I'll hang for use over the winter. I need to sort out my pantry, which is currently used to store mostly shoes, to make sure there's a space for hanging veg for storage. At the moment there is a sack of potatoes on the floor but I'd prefer for them to be hung up
Today I've spent the afternoon harvesting the last of my potatoes, they were King Edwards but the harvest wasn't nearly as good as the Maris Pipers. I found that they had more slug/wire worm damage and they produced less even though they had significantly more leaf growth. After harvesting I weeded the bed really well (helped along by digging up the spuds and removing loads of roots from the weeds that were in there, covered the whole lot with a thick mulch of the free manure/leaf mould mixed with my garden compost and planted in the kale my neighbour got me as well as the golden beetroot and red little gem lettuces I bought from the garden centre the other day, with a voucher my friend gave me. I remembered to net them to keep the pigeon's off so hopefully I'll still get a harvest from them this year. I also managed to harvest some more blackberries so I made another batch of jam tonight and I'll keep harvesting them as I see them. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid buying any more jam for the rest of the year (unlikely with the amount my children go through but it's a nice thought!) I think all in all it was a very successful bank holiday weekend and I'm thrilled to be able to start actually eating some of the produce I've grown.
Until next week - happy gardening!
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