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Finally it was  dry enough to get the cultivator out. In three hours I transformed a grassy, mossy, brambly terrace into quite a nice looking piece of ground. We planted the 10kgs of Kennebek seed potatoes that were by now well chitted. Then a row and a half of red onion plants - for salad onions - that we picked up yesterday. And garlic (from Spain) that I bought back in the Autumn but that still seems largely sound.

The cultivator is fantastic. The slow first gear is good for the initial passes and the faster second gear is more like a rotovator action. And the reverse gear is fantastically useful for turning at the plot ends.

Course, its not ideal to do all this in a day but rain threatened - laden with more Saharan dust than I have ever seen - and we shall probably reap all sorts of costs later in the season. But at least we are underway in this very tricky spring.