The man who worked in the garden has............

......gone inside the house to have his dinner. And probably to get a new fork too, as this one is broken.

Who remembers that line from Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men? A blast from my childhood I can tell you. One of the Watch with Mother programmes for children in the 1950s and 60s. Interesting to read what Wikipedia say about the programme mostly with the benefit of hindsight.

Bill and Ben was what immediately came to mind when I saw the fork propped up against the pallets that make up the communal muck heap down at the allotments this afternoon. It was very pleasant down on the plot, the sun came out and it felt warm, warm enough to make me remove my coat while virgorously forking in the well rotted manure into the potato patch. Need to get those tubers planted in the next couple of weeks before we travel to California at the end of the month.

Other things that need to go in include the shallots. a row or two of parsnips (perhaps we'll get a few more than the two good speciments we had this year), some beetroot, a row of broadbeans and perhaps some leek seeds.

The plot is looking good at the moment, still more digging over needed on a couple of patches and then finishing off the edging of the paths. I was wondering what to do with all the lumps of turf I was cutting back but found a use for it to build up a path that had sunk in the middle.