I also picked up a 3kg box of Blood, Fish & Bone powder for £3.99, and it was touch and go as to whether I purchased a cold frame, but I manfully resisted the temptation - for this week at least.
I was actually looking for a few packs of Asparagus, but they had already sold out despite them only having been on sale that day.
I had previously decided that I wasn't going to grow asparagus as it would tie up a bed completely, but this was a deal almost too good to miss.
Unfortunately I missed it.
This will add another £12 to my costs for the year. I have also decided to include the costs of any seeds that I purchased last year to be used this year.
The drainage channel has had a bit of a test over the past few days as we have had snow, rain, hail and everything in between. A couple of sections need to be deepened by a couple of inches, and I also need to carry on deepening the channel through the orchard to allow the water to drain more easily but overall it appears to be working as planned.
I have some 3/4" stone at home which I am going to use to fill the drainage channel but I hadn't brought it with me today so I couldn't start to lay the path over the channel as planned.
Whilst looking at the rhubarb bed which is currently the only piece of infrastructure in place on the top half of my plot (apart from the pond) I have realised that it is in the wrong place and needs to be moved about 3 or 4 feet back to line up with the edge of my plot. This is a bit of a nuisance as the ground under the bed has already been dug over and enriched with loads of manure, but there is no helping it. Also, part of the spoil heap left by the digger is in the way so I will have to move that first.
As I couldn't start on the path over the drain I decided to start on the path next to my existing beds instead. I laid some black membrane down and covered it with a few inches of bark chippings, then moved some of the flagstones from the existing paths to the new path, mainly to give me an idea of the amount of space that I will have to build the new beds and also plant the fruit bushes between the two new paths.
Another cost that I hadn't counted on will be the cost of some scaffolding boards to make the soft fruit and herb beds. I am not going to use the planks I already have because the new beds will only be 24" wide, and as the original wood I have is 3" wide that will be far too much of the bed taken up by the wood edgings.
We have quite a large number of scaffolding boards on the plot at the moment - cost to plotholders is only 20p per foot, so as I will need approximately 48 foot to start with, that works out at roughly £10 for a bed 19' by 2'.
Not bad at all.
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