Finally, this year's work starts in ernest!

With only a brief jaunt to the beach with the mutts I have spent 5 hours solid sorting out the allotment. The weather has been glorious (i.e. dry) so lots have been done, which has been so good for me as I had been getting rather frustrated with the weather.

Today I have marked out the second vegetable patch, on the site of the huge bonfire of last year, and have cleared all the rocks,loose wood and weeds from the area.(right picture below)

Then I dug over the entire main patch,manured it and started my hardy broad beans off under the closhes.

I even managed to clear some of the rubbish from the hedges and cleaned out the coops, so the whole field now looks ready for action and neat and tidy.

Last night I made clear working "blueprints" of crop rotation and ordered more cheap seeds.

Ann's allotment group is meeting this week and I am sure I will be able to do "swaps"- eggs for seeds and sets from March onwards.

Duncan is truly a magnificent animal and has spent the day watching me carefully as I seem to be a bit of a threat to his "girls". Getting the cockerels seem to have been a good idea as this morning a stoat ran across the field near the hens. I suspect a stoat could if push came to shove fell a smaller hen, but with the roosters there I doubt that it would ever get the chance.!!! When he shot into view both Duncan and Stanley immediately ran forward to protect the others. I have read of this protection ability the males show but this is the first time I have actually witnessed it.