We made good progress in clearing away the overgrowth but still have lots to do. There’s also the complication of dealing with all the green waste we’ve generated. We’ve created a new area in the far corner where we cleared out a couple of tonnes of garden waste compost created by years of dumping hedge and grass cuttings. But there are still mounds of branches and bushes to be processed yet.

Having had some of the branches on the garden’s old apple tree cut back we fed and mulched it this week: removed the surface growth in a perimeter of two-three feet around it, and fed it some ‘garden feed’ product and mulched it will a layer of compost. Our hope is that both the tree’s health and the quality of the fruit will be improved. We planted two dessert apple trees on the far side of the garden so hopefully their presence will provide pollination for this tree (a smaller dessert apple had been spliced into the side of the older tree for this purpose previously).

We planted them to about half the length of their stalks to avoid them being too ‘leggy’ and potentially vulnerable in the bed.

Otherwise we’re busy sowing and germinating seeds, and looking after seedlings in the polytunnel and our house’s sunroom. Apart from our copious tomatoes and onions seedlings, we have beetroot, parsley, sprouts, cauliflowers, lettuce and salads, fennel and aubergine seedlings – and are awaiting the germination of coriander, cucumber, squash, melon, peppers, peas, mange tout and soybeans – while a raft of new seeds are waiting to be sown.