Third bed

I've drawn a diagram (not very accurately) of the layout I want to make - the eastern beds (1-4) at the bottom of the garden are on slightly lower ground, and receive the best of the sunlight, so I've started there. So far 1-3 are de-turfed and have had the bigger pebbles removed. Tomorrow I intend to dig and de-pebble bed 4,  and grade the whole patch. That'll be a big job, but I can't plant in any of them until it's done. After that, I'll sow seeds in all four beds:

1. Winter grazing rye, a green manure.
2. Brassicas, initially kale (Nero di Toscana) and cabbage (Advantage F1).
3. Winter grazing rye.
4. Legumes, initially broad beans (Aguadulce) and peas (Meteor).

The kale should have been sown by the end of September according to the packet, but with the weather being very warm (and forecast to stay warm for a while) it should be OK, I hope. That's why I'm in a hurry to get the first four beds dug, de-pebbled, and graded.

I'm not sure yet about the higher section (beds 5-8) - I will probably plant alliums, try to prepare a bed for potatoes, and do at least one and maybe two more beds of rye. This is just a place-holder and soil improver until it's time for the main planting season in Spring.

Horrible looking thing, with glove finger for scale.

De-turfing the third bed today, I saw  more ants than in either of the first two beds, and I saw black ants among the red ones. Some ants steal the pupae of nearby ant colonies of different species, and when they hatch the abducted ants work in the abductors' colony. I assume that's what happened here.

Right in the middle of the ant colony, among all the eggs and grubs, I found this horrible looking thing. Looking at images of larvae on the web, I think it was a stag beetle larva. I say was, because it was gone by the time I'd taken the camera back inside - I expect a bird ate it. I'm sorry about that, because they're a declining species.