Zoe, Andrew’s fiance, came over on Saturday. Lunch was a quick drink and some excellent hot food at The Black Horse in Clapton. Afterwards, we went back home to drop Jean off then round to spend an hour at the plot.

The first task was to take up and clean off several old car side windows that had been pushed into the soil at an angle to form cloches. We stacked them alongside the fruit cage then made a start on the digging. We soon found that the soil was light and easily worked so it was no effort at all to dig.  The plot had obviously been well looked after and had benefited from good composting and being well drained. In an hour we’d cleared a strip about 2m by 3m then planted a row of garlic and a short run of perpetual spinach (leaf beet is the proper name, I think). (See more in photo gallery)

Our aim for this session was to clear an area and get something planted. By having something growing at the start would give us a good incentive to clear the whole plot and make it productive again. By the time we completed this it was beginning to get dark so we headed back home for a nice hot drink.

Zoe had made a delicious looking panforte. Unfortunately for me, having spent most of Friday afternoon in the dentist’s chair, it was something for the girls to enjoy! Ho-hum