Doing those autumn jobs!

We had a mass chicken breakout:  they ate the leaves off several chard plants, scratched up the newly sprouting green manure seedlings in the Misc bed--and scratched up some small beets in the raised bed.  Oh well.  I'm thankful we had no major incidents before this, and to be honest, this was not major at all (though it would have been at the beginning of summer when everything was still small and fragile).

I managed to plant out about 35 cloves of my own grown garlic last week;  the chickens scratched up a couple of earlier planted cloves (from the store), which showed some good root growth.  I popped them back in the ground too;  that makes around 85 cloves planted.

I also sowed cauliflower seeds in a tray--hopefully to plant out later on in the raised bed/cold frame next to the house.  If the slugs don't get them, that is.  That raised bed had plenty of chicken attention and has some nice bare spots in it now;  it was just growing chard and a few beets (and weeds);  I think they only scratched away the smaller weeds and smallest beets.  Lots of space for cauliflowers.

I cleared away most of the Roots bed--there were still about 10 onions lurking under the self-sown nasturtiums.  Not big, but tasty at least.  I pulled out some unwanted ornamental crocosmia in the Roots bed (it regrows every year, and if not checked will spread very quickly--at least it's pretty), and had plenty of growth from it and the accompanying weeds to feed my second composter.

And last but not least, I started 30 broad bean seeds to sprout in the garage;  when they do so I will dig a trench in the garden and plant them out.

Still not done:  clear away runner beans, plant shallots (can't find any I care to pay for;  maybe I'll go for seed instead), mulch brassicas with compost, pile manure/sow green manure on beds.  Better get going!