Tuber Mirum

Watching... waiting...

No sooner had I finished the paper pots and had a cup of tea, there was a knock on the door and my seed potatoes had arrived. (They were brought by a courier man in a van, obviously, they didn't make their own way here.)

 Checking on the excellent Grow Your Own forum, it seems that many gardeners have already started chitting their potatoes. Apparently, at the very least this prevents mould and weak, white, spindly shoots, and may also increase yield and shorten the time until the spuds are ready to lift. So I put them out in egg-boxes on a cool, well-lit, airy window sill. The sheet of advice that came with the potatoes said to place them 'blunt end' up, but I'd read somewhere that you place them with the majority of eyes uppermost. This was easier than trying to decide which was the blunt end. I think the potatoes have already decided which way they want to grow - one end usually has many spiky little eyes, and the other end usually has one, which looks different. I expect that one is the bud of the tap-root.

There are two varieties of potatoes here, Epicure, which is a first early (ready as soon as June, possibly), and King Edward, which is a maincrop, cropping from August. I got a 1.5 Kg bag of each variety, and that came to 23 Epicure and 24 King Edward.

Herbs

Mint, sage, oregano, and rosemary (and some kale seedlings).

A neighbour kindly took me along on a trip to a garden centre, and I did reasonably well at not buying things on impulse. I had these herbs on my list, and I also intended to buy a blackcurrant bush, which I did. Only a couple of packets of seeds came along to the till with me out of exuberance - turnips and lamb's lettuce. Oh, and some land cress, which is apparently like water cress but doesn't need running water to grow in. I got that because the packet claims it grows in shady places, and not many edible things do that - most prefer full sun or only partial shade.

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.