Asparagus Bed & Shed/Plot 1 Patio

This morning I got to the allotment early as rain was due between 9 and 10, as it happened there was a little light shower and then the sun came out and I managed about four hours on the plot.

I had started clearing the Asparagus bed on a previous visit when I had some help "Thing" who needed some assistance and I didn't get around to completing the task.

I had cleared quite a lot of the weeds but had not dealt with the long rooted dandelions. I sourced the FISKARS weed puller that Kelly had found me for free on Facebook marketplace and set to work extracting them.

I have to say I love this tool, as long as you get it over the centre of the dandelions it pulls them out so quickly and cleanly. I said to the guy I picked it up from that I was going to use it on the allotment, and he looked bemused, thinking that dandelions are only a problem on lawns and not allotments.

Here is the view after the weeding was complete.

I have a 30 litre sack of Dalefoot's Lakeland Gold which is an ideal spring mulch that encourages worms and enriches the soil. A sack is supposed to cover 1 square meter, however my beds are 2.4m x 1.2m. I'm working on the premise that if used as directed that sack feeds for 2 years.

I'm assuming that applying at around 50% the depth that it should be, that what I've done will feed the Asparagus for 1 year instead of two. I do still have some Equigrow Mulch and will put a layer of that on top at a future visit as well.

Here is the bed after applying the Dalefoot's Lakeland Gold, I did sprinkle a greater depth above where the crowns were laid out and thinner between the two trenches that were dug and along side of the trenches.

With time cracking on and the forecast for rain between 10 and 11 am I covered the bed back up with the debris netting to protect it from the foxes.

I rescued two Raspberry that had escaped from the bed next to the Asparagus bed and had come out with roots so I transplanted it into the Boundary Beds, together with another Raspberry that was growing in the path between the Raspberry beds.

That in turn meant that I had to run wires at the top and at mid height between the scaffold poles in the Boundary beds to support the two transplanted canes.

I stopped for a coffee looked at the weeds and movement that had happened to the patio in front of the plot 1 shed and decided to weed and realign the paving slabs, and infill a gap with a block and a half of concrete block paving.

Patio slabs in front of the Plot 1 shed weeded and realigned. The path to the potting shed needs some weeding and work at a future visit.

Before leaving the plot for the day, I thought I would check out the state of bed 1 and was quite surprised as it had been walked all over by the foxes but they had not dug like mad as I thought they might. They had however dug a hole in one of the Rhubarb beds which I need to fill in on a future visit.