A long day with unexpected rain. Just when I wanted to go outside and turn over the vegetable patch! I had originally decided to let the dandelions grow, as they are extremely nutritious and a great addition to a salad, but somehow, by the time 10 square metres of dandelion had reached shoulder height, I lost my enthusiasm for dandelion salad, or even dandelion stew, and just yanked them out by the roots, to lie unused and unwanted after such a valiant growth effort. I will put them in the compost so that their value does not go entirely unappreciated.
I have packets of heirloom seeds waiting to be planted - visions of abundant harvests round about December filled my head - and I suddenly realised that the Spring planting hasn't taken place and we are already well into October. Perhaps this is how the dandelions grew so tall without my noticing.
Gardening in sandy, oily soil is no joke, and the only things that I have ever had great success with are onions. They grew into large, warm golden globes thanks to abundant fertilisation from the racing pigeons we kept many years ago. Scraping the loft out every day yielded a bucket load and there is nothing finer for copious crops. My new idea is to put wooden frames into the soil (ex pallets) to somehow keep the seeds in place and hopefully provide protection from wind and moles while the plants establish themselves (assuming they even germinate).
The rain has stopped now and the sun has not yet set, so this might be the ideal time to get out there and give the seeds a little free moisture. But I still have to plant them, so cheers!
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