Raspberry Bed Infrastructure III

Here is the blank canvas that I started with this morning after arriving at 8:00, one bed in and the second bed frame stood on its side. This didn't stop the foxes from doing the tango up and down the bed that has been nicely dressed with acidic compost from the Apple Daleks. 

I have to say the Kikka Digga did a wonderful job of reducing the stress on my back, I still felt it and stiffened up in the afternoon but I would not have been able to have dug the amount I did at the speed I did this morning without it, and I would have been in a lot more pain than I am. 

The bed frame that was cut yesterday was turned legs upwards and the cuts and the visible surfaces were given a coat of paint so that it had time to dry in the sunshine, yep we had a few hours of that this morning. 

At 9:00 the Raspberry Malling Juno Fruit (early Floricane) were placed in a bucket of water with the assumption that it was going to be at least an hour until I had dug the next bed and the Raspberries could be planted. 

At around 10:15 the second bed had been dug and weeded, and the frame put into position and it was time to retrieve the Raspberry Malling Juno Fruit (early Floricane) from the bucket of water and put the Raspberry Tulameen (mid Floicane) in the water for its hour dip.

Last night I worked out the spacing for the six canes in the bed allowing for a post to go in at the narrow end of the bed.   

The mound of acidic compost has bindweed in it so I had to carefully reduce the pile into trugs and remove the bindweed before topping up the second bed with the compost topping. Once  that was done I recovered the canes from the water bucket and planted the Raspberry Tulameen (mid Floicane) in the second bed. 

Next job was laying the weed membrane between the two raspberry beds and then barrowing wood chip from the drop off and pick up area and laying and compacting the path with a rake. 

I used a couple of tubes from an old blow-away frame to mark where the edges of the next bed are located and then saw that the remainder of the compost pile needs to be relocated so that I can dig the third bed. 

I set about breaking up the compacted compost and extracting the bindweed into one trug whilst filling up other trugs with the good stuff that will ultimately be dressing the third raspberry bed. 

Before I knew it, it was 1pm and time to make my way home for lunch and an afternoon of catching up with work. These visits over the last week have been so rewarding and I feel like I'm finally making headway. 

In some respects I wish I had got the beds in place before the Raspberry collection arrived but it gave me the push I needed to get on with it, and I'm itching to get the third bed in and then get on with the square foot gardening beds, however I've just seen that snow is likely Friday so I may have to pot the last remaining six Raspberry Polka (late Primocane) temporarily into buckets until the bed is ready.