Getting Stuff Done

Today was a far better day than I was expecting from the beginning. The beginning was bad. I had a long list of stuff to do, as always, but things got off to a shit start after surfacing from a sad and broken sleep that had the neighbours waking me up at two am and shutting up finally, about four. Then, when I opened the curtains to see rain, I felt pissed off just because I was so keen to get going. Couple that with a broken fridge (again), off milk so no tea and no tea for the flask and I grumped off down to the plot cursing the rain, my broken sleep and my lack of caffeinations.

There are still weeds in this bed. We all know it.

And then I spent about two hours weeding. I am not really sure about weeding. I mean, I recognise that it must be done - but hand weeding, and especially my slowass hand weeding, seems like a particularly inefficient way to go about it. I have a hoe, but I don't know, I'm trying to get up the roots of the couchgrass and it doesn't seem like there's any other way to do that. The soil does not help - the mud seems to stick in heavy balls around the roots, and I suppose I could just hoof it all away, mud and all, but if I did that for every couch grass fragment, I'd be left with very little soil. I will be doing lots more digging over the next few weeks and I wonder, with the couch grass, whether it will be dealt with by a simple process of turning the earth over and burying the grass on its head? Hmm. I don't know. If I hadn't killed my azada, getting the grass up would have been much easier. But anyway, today's weeding was done on beds I had already cleared. That's the beauty of couch grass though; 'cleared' is not an entirely meaningful definition.

Potato bed. Not perfect but better.

I then dug over and covered the second bed at the top of the slope, which was easier than I imagined. I finished the chicken manure on that bit (oh sweet lord, is there a more heinous smell than chicken manure on an allotment?) and then, having received an alert that my maincrop spuds were on their way, thought I had better have another dig over the bed I'll be using for them. They soil is still very clay, but since I did the treatment on it last week, it didn't seem as sticky or heavy. I think it will need more work before I can cultivate it, but I'm quite excited, all the same.
I then uncovered a bit of my weed suppressant fabric at the other end,months and months earlier than I had planned because I thought it would be a perfect spot to try and grow on my runner beans. I had intended to cover this bed until next year, so I hadn't bothered to do anything. I learnt that, just covering a weedy area for a couple of weeks does not help. In fact, it makes things worse probably. So I'll never do that again.
I dragged some planks about for a bit in order to plan some more beds. Again, I don't expect to use these until next year, so I can go slowly in digging them up. I think I have room comfortably for five more beds, three larger ones in the main area, one at the back in the bit currently covered by planks, and one on a currently wildly grassy area. This lot, combined with the beds I have already  is as much as any small family could possibly need, frankly. I think there will also be room for some fruit canes and bushes, but probably only if I don't try and build a shed. I don't need a shed, I would just merely really like and prefer one. But I think I'd like soft fruit more. I've also identified a few areas in which I can grow aromatic herbs. God, this is going to be such hard work.

Horticultural fleece or weird shroud?

I also dug the courgette compost holes, covered my beetroot and carrot seeds better with the fleece (oh, making cloches soon - it just goes on),failed to make the pea teepee because the little disc I was gifted to help me do it is not with me (I don't think I need the disc, I could do it with pea sticks and string, but if someone is kind enough, etc). I cleaned up and pulled up a load of roots and did some fairly aimless digging. That's when it's time to come home. Digging and don't know why. There  must be something I've forgotten to do.
I think my alpine strawberries might be germinating, which is exciting (if maybe too late? Have to look into that), I have lots more parsnip seedlings today and one (count em!) celeriac seedling. I am happy. My roots situation is coming on. I just don't know where I'm going to end up putting the strawbs.
Next jobs on the horizon: Dig over spud bed again, add potato fertilizer (?) make  pea cage, plot new beds with string and pegs (use spirit level), make cloches, pot on new seedlings, take rubbish to skip, start digging new beds, buy more compost, dig and compost runner bean trenches, plant pea and sweet peas, make a runner bean cane thingy. Collapse?