Yesterday I spent an hour or so clearing a small patch of bindweed along the side of the garden in preparation for some more raised beds. It’s the area behind the broad beans, tomatoes and the mini plum tree (below). God only knows how long it will keep bindweed free as it’s horrible stuff and I can see myself pulling it out on a daily basis.

I mean does anyone really like weeding? In Bob Flowerdew’s book on compost he thinks of the plants he pulls up as more material to go onto the compost heap which gets him through it. A good way of looking at it, I reckon.

I remember years ago on a gardening course with the council, (and boy did they like doing courses there! As a workmate once said to me “the more courses you go on, the less real work you have to do, so sign up for everything!”) the teacher’s definition of a weed was a plant growing in the wrong place. She gave an example that a rose could technically be a weed if it was growing on a football pitch for instance.

I got stuck into the area with a hand trowel while on me knees (on an Sainbury’s own range kneeling pad, well worth the couple of quid it cost). If there’s anything that self seeded like Poppies and Calendulas I always transplant them elsewhere in the garden. Nettle leaves I now save in a bucket where I will later add comfrey and borage leaves to make a top plant feed (another Flowerdew tip, as he says adding the other leaves to the comfrey makes for a better all-round feed). Any weeds with seed heads I stick in a bucket of water to rot before chucking the horrible liquid on the heap later and any sticks get put on top of the ever growing mountain of wood to burn (another job I’ll get around to one day). Everything else goes straight on the heap.

Also I took some time to “thin out” a row of lettuces in the salad bed, giving the remaining plants more space to grow and at the same time providing us with salad for tea. Waste not want not, eh?