What we've managed to do on the plot today...

We put up the third trellis.

This has now created a nice part-shaded area for our herbs.












I weeded underneath the existing trellises and planted sweetpeas and nasturtiums.

I put up the pea frame I made last week out of scrap and fence leftovers and planted out some of the pea seedlings I bought. The green tuft in front is chamomile.

OH dug over and 'zenned' the bed for the kale seedlings (Black Tuscany). Together, we designed a frame for the netting. I tied four of our long coppiced hazelrods into two long rails. Then I cut 3  hazelrods into 8 stakes and screwed these to the rails. We stuck the stakes into the soil alongside the kale bed and OH cut a few more rods to lay over the frame. And finally, we stretched the netting over the finished frame. This is what it looks like now.

And this is our new bath/future pond. At the moment, we're testing whether the plug is leak-proof.
















While we were putting the finishing touches to our anti-pigeon frame, we had a visitor. It was Grumpy Matey who had once said he didn't like foreigners. He was lovely -- he had seen the note I'd put up on the site noticeboard and had come over ("This is the shed with the flower on it, right?") just to tell us that we were welcome to his excess tomato and courgette seedlings and that he would harden them off for us too if we needed it. Now I feel horrible for even thinking about wanting to torch his shed.

He became quite nostalgic ("This used to be my first plot.") and told us about lottieholders past and present ("He was the grumpiest b- you could ever meet; must be dead 20 years now.").

His most excellent line, delivered after he appraised the state of our plot: "This your first year?"