Whole Lotta Raking Going On

When I was 13, I never realised how useful pythagorus would eventually prove. I can tell you, should you ever find yourself in a similar position, that setting out a regular hexagon by eye won't necessarily go according to plan. With the geometry mastered, the Long Border has been deturfed, flattened, tilled, and seeded with green manure. Unfortunately, the emerging greenness on the right is not field beans but chickweed, an overlooked edible salad leaf - but I challenge anybody to eat it in the quantities that grow here. To be honest, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this area but it feels like we've achieved something.

Don't try this at home

Celery, probably the crop of most effort for least reward. Meticulous preparation, copious amounts of water and nutrients, fiddly blanching arrangements and a long growing season just to find the heart rotted or eaten by slugs. Or so I thought! I skipped the meticulous bit but we are swimming in water and nutrients here. And with this stumpy self blanching variety, there's no need for the earthing up or wrapping in cardboard nonsense. Only problem now, what the hell can you do with celery?

Not so shallow onions

Well DSB you have been busy - your orchard purchase almost replicates the delights of my favourite christmas carol. Please find an example of how to tie your shallow onion alas though these were not award winning.

We are currently planning the plot for next year although we have successfully grown Cauliflower for the first time.

I am with al lotment - bit of weeding is about as extravagant as I am getting this autumn but your hexagonal centre piece sounds like a great plan. Would possibly be worth a blogger coach trip to the north of Scotland - what do you reckon Al?!

Local Hero

Legend has it that it was watching repeated showings of Local Hero on Film4 that we finally made the decision to move north. A pilgrimage was therefore in order so last weekend we took time out from plot to visit the star of the film, the telephone box in Pennan, a village about an hour east of here. As you can see we are finally enjoying some late summer sunshine. It's about time I updated you on the plot though. Things have moved on a lot. After threatening for several months, and despite my protestations, Valerie hired a digger to remove the weed-infested remnants of a dry-stone wall and a few boulders undisturbed since the Flandrian. The effect is to make the area look vast. It also means that I can lay out the pattern of beds. Partitioning a an equilateral triangle into something practical proved quite difficult and numerous clever designs have been binned by the artistic director. We seem to have settled on a 12 metre wide hexagon as the focal point with paths heading to all parts between its constituent triangles. The hexagon, being off-centre, allows most of the remaining beds to be orientated with the midday sun. The plan is for the area eventually to be divided up into "rooms" for increased wind protection, with the partition walls comprising cordon apples and redcurrants, and rampant climbers like kiwi and hops. Today, we will order our orchard to populate the top of the slope; 5 plums, 3 damsons, 3 pears, 2 cherries, a rather speculative quince, and few apples. Lots to do this autumn. I'll keep you posted.