There is still a LOT of work to do during the summer. Those little brassica seedlings I was growing on my windowsill at home are quickly outgrowing the modules and I need to clear some more ground to put them in.
The problem isn’t actually so much the clearing of the ground, but the fencing it off to protect it from the little animals who want to dig under the veg, and so that you have something to attach netting to, to prevent birds pecking at the plants from above. I learnt this was necessary from my allotment neighbours, and from my own observations, evidence shown later in this post.
I recruited North to help with the job of clearing an area which had become overgrown with weeds since we rotavated. I guess we didn’t spread the manure thick enough.
Here’s just some of the weeds we cleared: some piled up in the unused quarter of the allotment (left) and others dumped on top of the manured but unused corner eighth (right) .
Between us, in a few hours, we had this 3m2 area weeded, cleared of manure and fenced in. In the middle of that little pitch is a rhubarb plant which survived us rotavating over and ignoring it for a while since it was hidden amongst weeds.
To the right of the new clearing is a row of beans that are just starting to climb, and then 3 rows of potatoes.
I didn’t bother to fence or net up the potato plants because I didn’t think any thing liked to eat them. Turns out this is true, but it doesn’t stop them digging under the plants anyway.
Something dug this big hole in my potato plant ridges, found a potato, had a little nibble and discarded it. I filled the hole in but it dug it out again and once those potatoes were gone it found another row to dig under. I have no idea what it was. Rabbit? Fox?
Something else liked to dig between the stawberry plants. Well I’m guessing it was smaller, since the hole was. Later in the summer I found these little woody pellets around the hole. They were dry and broke up into sawdust like stuff.
Any ideas for what they are or what deposited them? Please add your suggestions in the comments.
