We haven’t been out the back for weeks and it showed (above). The side bed had all sorts of debris on top of the soil: rotting comfrey leaves, dead sunflower sticks, dried nasturtium stalks and the like. We wrapped ourselves in a few layers of clothing, got the kneeling mat out and within an hour it looked fairly respectable (below).

The veg bed at the bottom put us in mind of an abandoned allotment (below) but now looks like any other bed during the winter. It was a bit frozen down there so the garden fork was left in the garage, a rake was the tool of choice and we got as much rubbish up as possible using it. All that’s left in the bed now is the couple of cardoons and a broad bean or two (below lower)!

The best thing we done was pull up the dahlia tubers, getting as much of the soil off as we could without damaging the them before storing them somewhere dry until the spring. We should have pulled them up earlier but laziness and life kicked in towards the end of last year. Let’s hope we’re not too late!