If I Could Turn Back Time....

The fact that Cher hasn't entirely managed it yet, despite all the surgery, does not discourage my stubborn pretence that I can cheat the clock, and that May is in fact still March. A ploy that has been made all the more convincing by the unseasonably cold weather we've been having.

Yesterday, it being the weekend closest to the 17th, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by planting my first early potatoes. Before you snigger though, hands up who's plants got frost bitten this week? ..... Hah, not so crazy now am I!

I put in two rows of Rocket, and one each of Pentland Javelin and Maris Peer. And because even after rotovating, there is only about 5 inches of loose topsoil, I spaced the rows twice as far apart as normal, leaving more bare soil between them. What I lack in depth of trench I shall endeavour to make up in height of hillock.

The shockingly lumpy, hard stony looking ground is a pretty accurate impression of what it is like at the moment. I raked top layer off at the bottom of the plot to put out some cabbages, but there is no way to get a tilth fine enough for seed sowing, so I shall have to draw out rows for things like radishes & beetroots, and fill them with multipurpose compost to give them a start.


The cabbages are all the better for being (mostly) freeman's, from my friends The Polytunnel Pair, at another plot in town. I have Savoy, Red Something -they forgot the variety- and some makeweights from Focus DIY (other brands are available) helpfully labelled as " Cabbage".