After what feels like a very long absence, I finally got a day in the garden today - what bliss.We've been (nicely) distracted from the build by music and guests for the last couple of weeks, and before that the house building had me distracted from the garden, so things are quite 'natural' (weedy) in the garden right now.
It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was a pleasure to start sorting things out.
First, I tidied the potato patches - removing the last of the potatoes (I even still had some earlies in .. and they were fine!) and then mulching the beds.
The 'eariles' potato bed is just seen in the right of this picture.
There were still a few nice spuds hidden away - bambino variety.
There is still some colour in the garden, with a few nasturtiums and marigolds hanging on. I even saw a butterfly.
I love chard for colour this time of year.
However, frost has already started to affect some of the nasturtiums.
I still had some nice second earlies too, (hmm, must remember what variety they were!) 
The beds where the second early and maincrop potatoes were planted has been partially invaded by renegade mint - that has spread wildly during the past couple of years of semi neglect. So, I patiently dug up all that had spread to the beds today.
Here are the sneaky white roots that I spent some time removing!
Last, but not least, the few remaining maincrop Cara were dug up.
I then quickly covered the two beds (seen in the last pic) with some weed suppressing membrane, as a temporary mulch. I may use a different mulch, I haven't decided yet.
I was really pleased with how dry the beds were - and the good condition of the potatoes, considering the unusually high levels of rainfall recently. I'm sure the fact that the beds are slightly raised (and aren't just clay) helps a great deal. I still have a lot of work to do tidying up and deciding how to manage the paths (I may mulch them rather than having them as grass or bare soil) they're very messy and weedy.
As well as the garden to tidy up, I still have to finishing preparing the polytunnel, so I missed out on overwintering crops in there for this year. Never mind, next year I'll make good use of it.
Here's me, catching a minute in the garden on another sunny day, earlier this week. I'm glad I don't mind things being messy for a while - it's still beautiful to me, even if it is a bit wild these days.
Next week, we get back to the build :-)
