Making beds

Finally finished digging the potato bed [No. 1]. It's not the digging, the grounds not really so heavy when it's not sodden, it's the bleeding couch grass. I must have taken 12-15 trugs of roots out. I dug the dandelions and docks out in October and only found half a dozen this time but the grass.....
Anyway it's ready and the spuds look chitted enough so I'll put them in on Sunday. I was going to wait 'til Good Friday but seems pointless.
The onions are taking for ever to put up shoots about four have and one garlic is showing. Wonder why?
I also dug over about a metre wide strip of bed 3, so the first lot of broad-beans (12 plants: Bunyards?) started in pots can go in. Also have dozen Kelvedon Wonder pea plants to go in in some kind of wigwam affair. Canes? String? Twigs?
I've decided in the allium bed [No. 3] in the third of the bed currently vacant and awaiting my leeks (sown late, 24 March, Musselburgh) to put some red salad bowl lettuce under my 'new' cloches.
I've been pondering on whether to use some nematodes on the brassica and salad bed, bit pricey I think, but then so are no crops. Hmm.
There were quite a few crows on the site today. They usually just watch from adjacent roof tops when people are about, giving the occasional throaty caw caw (to voice disapproval of our intrusion onto the site). One kept on swooping past me about 1m to my back as I was digging. I think it must have been because I was turning up loads of earthworms today, more than usual. I wish they'd eat the cats.

Primavera +1

Lovely sunny day today. Got the fruit area kind of sorted. Moved the largish gooseberry bush the middle of a path and the apple tree and put in the 2 extra GB and a redcurrant- these all came from the 99p shop- last October and have been sitting in the spare toilet all winter. No idea if they'll take, they had a bit of new growth. I put Blood, fish & bone into each of the holes and also gave a top dressing and lots of water.
In this area I've put the crappy weed fabric down and covered it in 270 litres of bark chippings. Need another layer I think to make sure. Kindly given 8 strawberry plants, so these went in. I moved the sage up to this area to. Looks quite good I think. It will be great if it works. Must think about a way of netting the bushes, though the cats keep most birds away, though I would rather have the birds than the cats. The pair of Mallards flew over again, I wonder if it's the same ones each time and where they're going.


I had the mower out and cut the paths on the bottom half, looks instantly better, like an allotment.
Also put three rows of red onion sets in (Red Kamal), tidied up and did a bit of digging so the peas can go in in a some kind of wigwam type shape. I've also gained about 15 of the large water-cooler bottles, so I can get some cloche experiments going. Carrots? Lettuce?
I saw a Song Thrush on the way home, the first I've sen in over 12 years of living in London. It was skulking about in the undergrowth by the river, I watched for five minutes until it flew away down-river It pleased me no end.