Repairing the damage

Peter gets to grips with his neglected vegetable plot

- Peter Seabrook

NORMALLY, I wait until all the leaves have fallen before setting about winter-digging the vegetable plot. Where deciduous leaves cover dug surfaces, they stay wet and do not fully gain from the freezing and thawing, wetting and drying that breaks down clods to produce a lovely friable structure for sowing and planting in spring.

Last summer and early autumn, the delayed flower shows soaked up weeks of my time, and my vegetable plot became an overgrown disgrace. I can’t wait to bury these shambles and have a pristine start to the new gardeneing year.