Dear readers, it rained on nineteen days last month, and the onions I left out on the path to dry are now mostly compost. Lift them in the first dry week of August next time, and dry them under cover, on chicken wire, where the air gets round them.
Leaf mould is worth the wait
People tell me leaf mould goes slimy on clay. It does, in a plastic bag. Use a square of chicken wire on four stakes so the air gets in, wet the leaves if they are dry, and leave them two years. What comes out crumbles like cake and holds water without going sour. Spread it on the beds in spring and the clay is easier to work every year.
Beech and oak are best. Horse chestnut and sycamore take longer, so I keep them in a second bin. Pine needles go on the blueberries.
Broad beans for an early crop
Sow Aquadulce Claudia in the second half of this month or early next, 5 cm deep and 20 cm apart in a double row. They sit through winter at a hand's height and crop three weeks before the spring sowing, before the blackfly wake up. On wet clay, sow them on a ridge drawn up with the hoe, so the seed never sits in a puddle.
What I got wrong
The onions, as above. And I sowed the green manure too thinly, so the chickweed won. Broadcast it twice as thick as the packet says and rake it in.
With love from the potting bench,
Elspeth