Making progress

After two-and-a-half dry days I’m starting to make progress in the vegetable patch, progressively stripping the soil out of one bed yesterday, layering the bottom with muck and then replacing the soil. Then, exactly the same thing today. Yesterday’s bed is closest to the camera, today’s is to the left. With the soil back in the beds, both beds had to be hoed to break up the larger clods, then levelled with a scaffolding board held on edge, and then raked to a fine tilth. I had hoped to get some seeds in today but only finished the second bed at 5pm.

Beef and barley soup

With the weather gradually improving my outdoor workload is increasing dramatically, which means my cooking has to change to simpler dishes that can be served over several evenings.

At the same time, we’re at the point in the year when we’re mainly reliant on stored root vegetables, pulses and grains, and brassicas.

The result is that we tend to eat a lot of soup, stew and brose, either vegetarian or flavoured with pork or chicken bones. Occasionally, the boys and I get a treat.