The Englishman, the French Potager, and the Chinese Rotavator

Today was forcast to be fine, like yesterday, so we decided it would be a good day to be working on the potager. The sunshine, and the lack of clouds, also meant it was a great day for the morning hunt! We just heard the sounds, the dogs, the horns and occasional shouting; but no sign of the game today.
We started with breakfast- outside on the front patio despite the slightly cool start to the day.

Smoky bonfire!

The back patio under
construction: and in use!

Then we decided to start a bonfire and clear some of the years of old branches stacked in the corner of the garden. Under the branches were piles of old grass cuttings (which will fertilise the garden another day) but self-seeded in this were some bulbs that June transplanted. The branches on the bonfire, once lit, burned brightly, but the greener stuff was smoky as in this afternoon picture- still burning!

With the fire going, it was time to prepare some ground for potato planting. This will be at the bottom of the potager to rotate the crops on the land. Time to try out the Rotavator.

Rotavating looks simple enough. And the machine started quite easily. We (it and me) set off; and dug a big hole right in 1 place. Slowly, with difficulty, we lurched from hole to hole. By the end of 4 rows I was exhausted. Time for tea.

The Titanic Shackle

June looked at my efforts. "Oh," she said, "I thought you would do all of it?" So after tea I set out again. This time I let the thing run a lot faster and not so deep. We (it and me) fairly shot along! Making the turns at the ends was something to learn, and true, we did get stuck sometimes, but the rest of the land was gobbled up in no time. It must have been the tea-break! In the far corner of the ground I found a huge shackle that could have come from the titanic. We normally come across blacksmith stuff, not shipwright things! Time for some lunch.
The temperature reached 20 Centigrade so after lunch we found ourselves working in shirtsleeves in February. The after-lunch activity was some 'trenching' for Terry and weeding for June.
Weeding we know about. Trenching was a new concept- so I read up on it first.

Afternoon tea.

Relaxing in the afternoon sun-
note the short-sleeve T-shirt!

The idea is to get muck and ash under the soil ready for planting in a couple of weeks time. Muck courtesy of some horses last year; it has been rotting in a corner of the potager ever since. So, according to the advice, you dig a hole at the start and move the mud to where you anticipate ending. Then muck and ash in the hole and dig a new hole next to it. The mud from the new hole goes over the muck in the first hole and the 'trench' moves along in that way. It is quite efficient, and with rotavated mud, not so hard as it may sound. Still we took a tea-break mid afternoon, this is supposed to be fun after all!

As the sun was sinking low in the sky, we decided to get in 2 last things before the day was out. For June, it was painting the new gates and for me, completing the cement step outside the garden shed. Hopefully there will be no frost tonight!.