Beds paved with gold

Every time I try to convince myself that vegetable gardening could be seen as a money-saving enterprise, I have only to think of my last visit to the garden centre to shake it off.

This weekend, I have bought over 500 litres of compost, soil and manure. If you can't picture that, it's about enough to fill 4 and a half bathtubs full and would normally cost more than £50. I only bought that much because the garden centre was doing a half-price clearance sale to get rid of old stock and I thought I could stock up and sort myself out for the year.

It's all gone already. And there's still more needed.

February's payslip, right there. The most expensive cat litter tray imaginable.

This is the problem with gardening in raised beds and pots, rather than in an actual garden. All the matter that goes into creating cauliflower leaves and carrot tops is very finite, so when I pull my crops out, the dirt can only be replenished from my wallet. Or from home composting, but the small amount I get from that doesn't put a dent in my garden's needs.

Still, in using all the dirt, I have managed to get a lot of the garden set up for the growing season. I now have all my main growing beds set up and ready to go, as well as having all of my potatoes planted, which is good Unfortunately, the "Swift" potatoes I planted last month don't appear to be that swift at all - there's not even a hint of a sprout yet, which isn't promising for me getting the first potatoes next month.

Do you see the difference between last month's Swift plantings at the front and the newly planted bags behind? Nope, neither do I.

The early broccoli, on the other hand, is going great guns and has already been moved outside to get the best of the sunlight and get used to the temperatures. I've put them into biodegradable peat pots, rather than plastic ones, as these can be planted straight into the soil whole and hopefully give the broccoli strength from not having their roots buggered about with. I'm really hopeful of getting an early crops from these.

One thing which has been a surprising success has been cat shit prevention. Back when I first started complaining about cats digging through and shitting on all of my work, someone suggested that men's urine was a suitable deterrent. It seemed like a sensible idea in terms that cats won't soil an area that's the home ground of another cat (hence why they all come here, as we're the only house on the block without a cat of our own), but it involved either filling a bottle which was kinda grim, or going out at night and hoping the neighbours weren't looking, so I didn't get around to it.

However, I've given it a try the past month and it really appears to be working. No cat shit since the first application, which puts it head and shoulders above any other method so far. Gardening advice for March - piss on everything you can.

PJW