Raised beds, compost maths and asparagus

When the sun shone on Saturday morning, and the rain promised to delay until midday, we hatched a plan to build two more of the raised beds in the garden. One half of the garden – 6 beds – was completed last year, leaving 6 more to go. We don’t have space for them all until we take the old shed down, but we found room for two next to Ryan’s workshop.

As we drilled the guide holes last year, assembling the raised beds now is quite quick, although it does take some effort – the sleepers are heavy! By the time we stopped for elevenses, the bottom layer of both beds was in place.

I’d been offered the opportunity to try some Jus-Rol products, and one of the ones we chose was their Cinnamon Swirls, so I cracked open the tube and baked those on Saturday morning. They’re easy peasy – open, slice, bake and then drizzle with icing. The end result is light and crispy, and – although not overwhelmingly cinnamony – very tasty. We were good and only had one each for elvenses (there are 6 in the packet), and had another one for dessert at lunch. I put the remaining two in a plastic pot, and we had them lunchtime the next day – by which time they were slightly less crispy, but just as good!

Refuelled, we carried on until lunch time, and by then we’d finished two raised beds. When we filled the first six beds last year, I settled on a mixture of topsoil, manure and peat-free compost, and the vegetables I grew last year looked well-fed. Since I misplaced my notes, I had to do the Compost Maths again to work out what we need to fill the remaining beds.

I have plenty of peat-free compost (New Horizon) on hand, having stockpiled it over the winter as and when there was a good offer on at the garden centre.

The beds are 1.2 square metres, and we