It may not look very exciting but.....

...there are 68 strawberry plants in there.

 And I still had 30 surplus to give to family.  They are all Marshmello and originated from 12 plants, about 4 years ago.  The strawberry patch was in a terrible state, infested with couch and nettles, and had gone well beyond mere weeding.  It needed digging up and replanting, so that's what it has had over the last two or three days (yep, it took that long!).

But, lest you think I slave away bereft of creature comforts, I thought I should show you
the refreshment station

and the necessary unguents for clean hands.

I do get a decent cuppa, and clean hands, out of this but the hands still feel akin to a badger's fundament.

And finally, new camera, new pics - I'm quite pleased with this one, demonstrating that the plum is beginning to stir into life.

Busy afternoon......

....in the great seed sowing emporium which is our garage.  So, today I've sown:

• Tomatoes (x3) - ordinary, cherry-type & plum
• Baby Leeks (non-specific, labelled as "East European"!)
• Onions (x2)- Bedford Champion & Red Baron (aka Manfred von Richthofen, ace German fighter pilot of WW1.  Why was he growing onions?)
• Cabbage - ordinary (Primo) & German shredding cabbage (Filderkraut)
• Broccoli
• Ordinary Leeks (Musselburgh)
• Rocket
• Pak Choi
• Basil
• Sybil
• Manuel
• [just checking to make sure you're awake]
• Parsley
• Mizuna
• Cavolo Nero Black Italian Kale
• Five varieties of Lettuce
• Night-scented Stoics
• Bidens (yellow, flowery, dangly things for hanging baskets)
• California Poppies (a David Douglas introduction)
• Poached Egg Plant - Limnanthes douglasii (another DD introduction)

And I didn't get to the Sweet Peas because I'd lost them.  But the best bit is that the neighbours are away so I can plug the iPod into the speaker system in the garage and crank the volume up.  Cue much hilarity when 'Er Indoors comes in quietly and observes Dad Dancing going on.

At last!

A new roof on the shed!!

It's only been a year (or more) since it started falling in.  But no more; the new roof is on today.

Looking back, I can see that the old roof was a poor thing.  I followed conventional (aka cheap) practice of using chipboard covered by shed felt.  Chipboard, when wet, has all the strength of cold porridge and it's heavy too.  Shed felt is horrible stuff to work with and when it inevitably fails it lets water into the chipboard which....well, don't stand underneath it is my advice.

So, judicious application of a wrecking bar removed it in much less time than it took to install it.  Two new "joists".  Then a combination of an underlayer of builders damp-proof membrane on the top and bottom thirds of the roof and the whole overlaid with clear corrugated PVC sheets which, handily, come in just the right size!  So the roof is waterproof and the shed has lots of light because the middle third of the roof is transparent.  Neat, or what?

And finally, in a burst of mad enthusiasm, I painted it too.  No, not the roof!  Just the walls, and it looks a damn sight better for it.