The last of the main crop potatoes went in this morning so there are no more deep trenches to be dug.  Perhaps one more narrow trench for the pink fir apples ( a delicious salad potato that we grew 35 years ago in Devon) but the heavy work is over…..for now!

On the beds to the left of the potatoes we have put layers of cardboard around the soft fruit bushes to mulch out the thistles and tufts of stray grasses.  On top we have placed heavy stones and will keep adding more cardboard until the supply in the barn…the empty packing cases from when we moved…runs out.

All around there are huge fields shining with the sunshine yellow flowers of the oil seed rape crops.  A faint, but not unpleasant, cabbage smell is in the air as the rape is a member of the brassica family.  My neighbour dislikes this but, for me, it is just part and parcel of the sights and smells of spring here in beautiful Bedfordshire