More death this trip. All but two of my lovely celeriacs have gone. And now I am completely cucumber-less. I found three fat slugs right at the base of one of the cucumber plants so the culprits were easily recognised.

So it’s back to square one. Sow the seeds and hope that I don’t miss the growing season entirely this year. It’s enough to drive an organic gardener to the poisons shelf in the garden centre. I have placed netting over the last remaining celeriac plants. They do look rather forlorn. Luckily the corn next to the celeriac bed has taken off and looks like it will survive any attacks. But I wish I didn’t have to lose so much of my crop.

The weather has been so cool that my tomato plants are huddling. But the broad beans have put on a lot of growth. I may even have a crop soon. Just need to wait for the little pods to swell. Flowers on the peas, some flowers on the potatoes, some of the cabbage may just make it.

I watered like mad and checked over all the little seedlings on the potting table. They all seem fine.

Sorry this is all so desultory. I wrote detailed notes about what happened this trip and have misplaced them. So I’m making it up one week too late. And in that week a fantastic amount of rain has fallen. Over three inches I believe – I was away. But freezing cold too, which will have checked any growth that may have been hoped during this early growing season. I haven’t time today to go up and inspect. It’s most frustrating not being able to get there, but I have another trip to take Friday, and won’t be able to go up before Tuesday. Well into June. Talk about a part-time gardener.

My plants from Sarah Raven arrived by post: some battered and fading, and all definitely too small to risk planting out. Lots of artichokes and plump pretty perennial flowers. I would go outside to where they are getting their sun kicks and read the labels, but it’s just too far for one in a lethargic state.

The good news is that there is even more activity on my neighbouring plot. About 20 feet of soil has been turned over – and it may mean that they are going to plant this year. Thank goodness. The march of bindweed over the bed and onto the path and into my climbing beans was becoming relentless. Perhaps on Tuesday I will go up and meet the mystery gardener.

What a day of disappointment: I went up early to check the crops and plant a few extra dwarf French beans, and water if needed. And what did I find? Destruction by the little beasts. Everywhere. Five celeriac have disappeared from their neat little planting holes. I don’t think I can blame the slugs for that as the roots have gone as well. Plucked by a bird looking for some juicy nesting material? Uprooted by my new neighbour the Big Scary Rat? I don’t know. But the body count continued as I walked the rows: five cabbages have been grubbed up, six peppers no more, and of the seven climbing beans I planted last week I’m down to three. So vexing as I can’t see the creatures that are doing the damage. I inspected the beans carefully and can’t find what is chewing the leaves.

I have lost yet another cucumber – making a mockery of the elaborate climbing frames I have put up for the plants. And just to really slap me in the face with a grubby gardening glove – I even found lily beetle down at the lily pots. Grrrr.

On the good side I can say that the potatoes are fine (even though there is even a bit of slug damage on the leaves – they leave the tell tale slug slime trail), the flowers are all fine, so too the strawberries and little celery plants. My herbs are still there, but the pumpkins are looking battered. The peas are romping away – even the ones I planted recently. And the broad beans are putting on growth. And black fly. But the ladybirds are trying their best to eat their way through them. And if I wanted to be reassured that all is not lost I just have to look at the onion bed. All fine there.

I went to the shed and tried to think what to do. First course was to water the plants and hope that the ailing pumpkin and cabbage could fend off the pests with good growth. And I squished as many black fly off the beans (making sure not to hurt the ladybirds) as I could.

I even resorted to an ‘organic’ bug killer product to save the rest of the broad beans. I was squirting away when Mick came up to inspect my plot and tell me that he has sprayed some of the neighbour’s plot. He then pointed out the most glaringly obvious change in the plot next door. Someone has chopped the big overgrown shrub down. In my dismay about my crops I didn’t even notice. But that is good news: I don’t know if it is the absent Charlotte, but it does mean that someone intends to do something to the wasteland next door.
I checked my little potting table for any signs that the slugs have found the juicy climbing beans that are too small to be planted out. (Too small? I don’t know if I dare plant them out at all? Can’t I just keep them in a pot and save them this unnecessary ‘pruning’ by all the grubs known to gardeners?) And everything looks fine there. The grevillea really is poorly, but I’m hoping that its new growing medium will help it along.

I sowed the dwarf French beans in all the holes left by the missing plants, pushed in extra ones around the poles. And then added a few sunflower seeds for good measure. I suspect they won’t thrive in my tough old soil, but at least I can fool myself they are a backup measure for the ones I have grown in pots and thought I would plant out later. Now I’m not so sure.

So in all, not a happy visit. To cheer myself up I donned heavy gloves and secateurs and had a good old chop at the brambles growing through the fence and into Janet’s flower garden a few yards down from my shed. Felt better after that.  And I went home with the car scented with a handful of lemon verbena I plucked from the bush. Plus some sage leaves for dinner tomorrow night and two (count ’em two) French beans from one of my plants. It won’t quite make a salade niçoise but at least I can say I have harvested something.

Up rather early for a Paddington / Heathrow Express run, I decided to get up to the allotment early too. Pausing only to pick up yet more bags of mini bark chips, two tomato plants and some herbs, I was in and gardening by 9am. Today was to be Open Day; two visitors from our rock climbing world. David to take photographs for an architectural project, and Kevin to console with a fellow slug sufferer and have a good look around. Nothing like the imminent arrival of guests to force you to weed a little more attentively than usual. I ‘did’ the pea beds and the broad bean plots. All this rain has softened things nicely. There were a strange creature on the broad bean tips and I’m afraid I did rather squash them before wondering whether they were beneficial insects eating into the black fly colonies. Pinching out the growing tips of the broad beans is only half the solution. You have to squash and slime your way down a long part of the stalk to get an inroad into the infestation.  Oddly, I find killing black fly quite soothing. They don’t fight back.

My rest of the garden is gorgeous if I must boast. Full of lush growth. And on the death count it’s slugs three corn plants, gardener 17.  But that’s not as bad as last year. I also think a bird pulled off one of my cucumber plants in a search for nesting material. It’s a clean break of quite a lot of cucumber plant, so I can’t blame slugs for that one. But they did eat the other one earlier this week. I only have three plants left. Must do more.

Pause there in writing up my notes as I do exactly that. Two pots of Burpless Tasty Greens coming soon to a south facing window near you.

I then started on the mess at the water butts. This is to be a newly clean area after my slime work yesterday; and I pulled out all the plastic bags that used to hold bark chips and compost, and stuffed them into a black bin bag. (They would have to go back to South Kensington to be disposed of – the allotment skip is late again.) And amazingly, the area looked transformed. Not quite worthy of a photo; there’s only the nerdy who could feign interest in the sight of two wheelie bins filled to the brim with water and a head-high stack of compost in the bins behind, all framed by a big apple tree. The big old wooden compost bins are rather rickety. God help me if they collapse under the weight of this year’s garden discards. I’ve spent way too much money already this year on compost and bark. No funds for fripperies such as decently constructed compost bins.

At 1030am I went up to the street to let in David and Kevin and the sun decided to make an appearance as well.  All three were welcome and we had fun touring about the huge allotment site – something I never do as I always make a beeline for my own patch of land.

Wildlife was, ahem, rather in abundance. Standing watching David photograph the cabbages at my Vietnamese neighbours’ plot Kevin and I saw something climb through the fence beside my plot, creep over to my tomatoes and get stuck into the oatmeal around the base of the plants. Ah, a squirrel, I thought. But no. It didn’t have a bushy tail and I think the species is actually called Big Scary Rat. Huge. It spooked quite easily, but took two stones to get rid of it and I didn’t see it again that afternoon – but I’m sure it is feasting when my back is turned.

As it came from behind the fence in the neighbouring houses, I can’t do anything about it. There are way too many holes and gaps in that fence to keep wildlife, of all varieties, out. So naturally it did make me wonder whether putting down oatmeal is a big mistake.

But then there’s the rub. Slugs or rats? What a dilemma. Everyone seems to be liberally applying the slug pellets after all this rain. Even the club secretary who I thought wasn’t a believer in poisons has the little blue pellets all over his 30 or so potato varieties. We were making our way over to his plot when we saw our next bit of London wildlife – a large fox. It casually loped away in front of us – bold as you please in the middle of the day.

It was rather fun to range about over the whole site again – lots of healthy broad beans and artichokes everywhere, and some tremendous weeds. We visited Oswaldo’s plot which is bursting with life and nesting birds. He has offered me some artichokes – and I may take him up on the offer. Rino has promised me some, but I get the feeling they are not forthcoming. Poor Rino – I hope he doesn’t think me a bad neighbour by turning down his generosity. It is probably a language barrier – but offers in January just haven’t materialised and the growing season is getting on. First it was the tomatoes from Paddy and now the artichokes. I will strim his paths for him as I know he doesn’t have a strimmer next time I’m up and the grass is dry. It may mollify him somewhat for the slight he must feel for my accepting Other People’s Vegetables.

Once the visitors left it was time to get on with planting out the celeriac plants. They are going next to the corn (I will worry about shading from tall corn stalks only if they survive their infancy slug attack). Twenty little plants all grown from seed; quite lovely things. I mulched them with bark chips and placed as many beer traps as possible around the outside. Maybe the rat is enjoying the liquid refreshment I provide after the rather mouth-drying oatmeal.

Next it was on to the messy bit at the back of my shed. Rino arrived as I was hauling the pots about. No mention of artichokes, but he has kindly given me some celery seedlings. I have planted them next to the broad beans and wished them luck. They look so lush I would have been tempted to eat them myself. Hopefully they will get a bit more growth on before succumbing to whatever will ail them.

It’s the reason why I have eschewed strawberry plants in the past; I never imagined they would survive long but I have decided to give them a try. The ones at Marsanoux are so plump and abundant, it would be lovely to try and recreate the fruity explosion here. I only planted out six of them (all in flower) so we shall see.

I had rescued a big door shutter from the skip outside the climbing centre the night before and decided it would do nicely for a potting table that I wanted to create behind my shed. Bending down and potting things at a crouch inside the shed is just no fun. And it couldn’t look any worse than some of the frankly hideous structures dotted around the plots. And besides, recycling is much more satisfying. I didn’t have any table legs, or trestles, so decided to use upturned plant pots instead. Out came all the heavy soil from the pots (hurting back in process which is rather smarting today) and I planted out the Australian clematis plant that had been sulking in one of the pots for many years. With luck it will revive and grow up onto the roof of the shed.

The table is now chest high and a perfect place for me to plant and propagate and store seedlings and generally pretend I have a greenhouse. I potted the leptospermum (an Australian tea tree) into a better compost than the one it has been in (John Innes 3, Ericaceous compost and perlite) and hope it will improve. It actually has flower buds on it for the very first time, so if the shock of being transplanted doesn’t kill it, I may even get pretty white flowers this spring.

Now the only pots left are the three healthy lily plants, a pot of pinks from Oswaldo, two pots of hellebores, and the sage. Far better than the dozen or so that were there before. Damp pots inspire slugs and I did have to kill some monsters (quickly) as I moved them about. I will use some of the empty pots to pot up more carrots. The one wine box of seedlings I have started has some lovely growth.

One may wonder why I don’t use slug pellets when I am more than happy to dispatch the creatures when I see them. But the thought of adding poisons to the plot – which may get into the food chain by birds eating poison slugs or just sitting in the soil doesn’t please me. I know a lot of people use the nematode worm to control them. I did try that rather expensive procedure last year; but it has no effect on the travelling slugs that can move over from the neighbour’s derelict plot. The worst of the slug damage is always on the perimeter.

Enough of death, onto life: I can also see tiny seedlings appearing where I planted the radish seeds; bright red just like the finished product. Beside these I planted out three basil seedlings, plus some thyme, oregano and mint. Quite the little Mediterranean garden.  I could hardly drag myself away from the now much tidier and organised plot. But there is another garden that needs my attention (on paper at least – I’m teaching myself how to map out the garden using scale and triangles and lots of colourful pens). So it was home in yet another rain shower, but felt satisfied that I’m weed free and neat for at least a week.
 

Rain would not deter me I just had to get up to the garden. It is still raining, but I really wanted to put my new little Australian plants into a better place than a window sill. I picked up yet more compost (of the ericaceous and hence more expensive variety) and some eight foot canes for the extra climbing French beans.

My first task once I had raced to the shed to get my rain gear on was to tie extra rows of twine on the bean poles. The ones at the end of the plot in front of the wheelie bins are finally putting on growth. I did manage to mix up the climbing and the dwarf ones (as I suspected) when I hurriedly planted them out. So I do have some interesting heights. But it shouldn’t matter too greatly. I have just one climbing bean amongst the dwarf ones in the main bed. And I placed a taller cane beside it, and tied it in for support.  With luck the climbing beans I planted out on Sunday would romp up the canes as well.

I had plenty of red kale, black Tuscany kale and cabbage seedlings that have been crowding the roof terrace. They aren’t hulking beasts, but I thought it best to plant them out as well now that I had all the time. They are all in their neat rows in the brassica bed – easily the largest part of the garden beside the potatoes. And all under the black plastic and the mulch. You can see patches of black through the bark chip mulch, so you couldn’t fool anyone into thinking it’s a normal allotment plot with carefully hoed beds and neat weed-free rows. But so far it is working. The only real weeding that needs doing is between the pea rows where I didn’t put down this much mulch. Lots of little potato seedlings are coming up from last year’s potato crops there. Not in the right place and very small, and irksome when they appear between your broad beans and your peas.  I don’t have the heart to yank them up just yet – maybe next week. Who knows, I may get a first little crop of very early last year lates for free.

It has not stopped raining for about four days now: exciting for the garden but Giving Ideas to the Slugs I suspect. We drove over there after a great morning’s climbing. I wanted to show David the progress of the crops, and to plant out the six climbing French beans that were straining their pots here at home. We arrived in a drizzle, but it didn’t deter the intrepid tourist. He was duly impressed by the volume of crops in this year. And I had time to plant out the beans, and pluck the first rose of the season from the big pot under the apple tree. It’s a Madame Alfred Carrière, and a delicate whiteish pink. It is perfuming the room as I type.

On Saturday I had my first ‘go’ at the Australasian Plant Society’ away day. It was fun to meet like-minded gardeners keen on Australian plants. Mind you I was such a new girl when it came to plants. And a very junior gardener when compared with their astounding knowledge. But they were all very friendly and helpful. And Judy Clark was particularly keen for me to take lots of her little seedlings for the future garden.  I am now the proud owner of my first Australian garden plants:

Prostanthera cuneata (Alpine mint bush)
Callistemon citrinus (two little plants)
Banksia integrifolia
Grevillea barklayana
Plus a leuchadendron seedling (that’s an African protea) and a mystery plant which may or may not be an Arthropodium cirratum (a New Zealand rock lily)

I have high hopes for the mint bush; it’s meant to be a good ground cover plant and may do for Marsanoux. Judy did warn me that it may suddenly die, but hopefully I can get quite a few good cuttings from this one plant and build up a good stock.

The little Banksia plant is tiny, but it may grow well, and the grevillea is in sore need of the right compost. It is palely loitering right now in its pot. I have the formula for all these plants: ericaceous compost, plus John Innes Number 3 soil, plus grit. Shall do that this week. If I’m to get this Australian garden going in France, the propagating and potting on has to start now.

Strimmer work. Armed with the instructions and a newly cleaned strimmer blade it was time to work on the paths. I have the starting procedure going much more smoothly now; but the technique for strimming leaves a lot to be desired. I seem to operate a sort of scorched earth policy, rather than a neat strim. Bald patches appear when I spend too many seconds in the same place trying to kill a dandelion plant or a more recalcitrant clump of weeds. It still takes hours, but at least the paths look beautifully trim. I even had a go under the apple trees which were knee high with weeds. That was a bit lively. Strimmer bouncing around madly as it came into contact with old rotting apples and random bits of stick that had been stored there over winter. It took a few goes to clear all the mess from around the strimmer blade, but eventually I stopped and stepped back to admire. 

Taking a long swig of water in the shed reminded me that the slugs needed their drop as well. Topped up all the beer traps and cleared out the ghastly floating corpses. The wind had picked up by now and really strong gusts were battering the garden. My poor just-planted lemon verbena bush lost a top branch after being battered by the shed door. I have to find a way to secure it shut during high winds. Not having a lock or a door handle does mean it rattles about a bit. (It is usually secured shut by a brick and a pot of hellebores.) But the lid of the cold frame managed to stay secure.

Time left in the afternoon to dig my manure trenches for the pumpkins. To my joy I discovered the soil under the black cloth is gorgeous. It has been protected under cover for a whole year. It cuts easily with a spade and is the texture of a rich piece of chocolate mud cake. Good enough to eat – but it went onto the potato plot instead. I need to earth up the potatoes (something I am putting off every trip) a bit more, and adding soil seems to be the best cheat’s way to do it.

I dug two big trenches and poured in some gooey rich farmyard manure. Topped with soil and in went the little pumpkin plants. The poor plants look so tiny beside this enormous amount of trench work; hope they survive.  I added beer traps nearby and wished them luck.

A whole day of gardening: what a treat. I have come back with nowt but a grubby self, rubbish bags of plastic, empty plant pots and a great feeling of satisfaction. So much achieved; and I have done things I’ve never had time to do before – like pruning the ivy that is all over the wooden fence next to my plot. And edging the grass. And clearing up.

The day started with showers. Such a novelty I wasn’t even deterred. Just stood in the shed and watched it sheet down, and plot what was going to get planted first. Naturally the rain didn’t let up for about an hour – plenty of time to actually clean the mouse droppings from the shelves in the sheds, sort, remove rubbish and tidy away the fleeces, and generally pace about.

By the time it (mostly) stopped raining I charged out and planted the rest of the tomatoes. I now have 21 little plants all staked and neatly planted in their grow bags and covered in mulch.

Next it was to be a row of seeds – I even got the rake out for that. My soil isn’t the sort you see on TV. No fine tilth for me. But I was actually able to work this part of the plot into a semblance of crumb, and to celebrate put in a row of radish. I love radish seeds as you can actually see them in your hand as you scatter along the row. Unlike those wretched salad and rocket seeds. Most of them are decorating my shed floor as I forgot the little parcel of rockets seeds that Oswaldo gave me, and upended them while I was sorting my pots. Never mind. It will be a gourmet delight for the mice.

There will be space beside the tomatoes for the basil. Which I forgot to sow last month. I stupidly didn’t replenish all my stock of seeds from last year, and consequently overlooked them in my month of mass sowings earlier. They will be late. But I sowed seven in their little pots today, and who knows; maybe the slugs will be deterred. Last year they ate all but two. Mind you, two bushy basil plants seemed more than enough (yet another serving of pesto anyone?) but I always sow more than I need.

Stopping only to greet my Vietnamese neighbours it was time to ‘do’ the flower bed. There are enough of my plants to make an almost interesting display. I haven’t managed to germinate more than three of each variety of cornflower, scabiosa, nicotiana (and a few I have shamefully forgotten) but they will make a substantial bed of colour. I have labelled them with a marker pen that is fading as the season wears on. Oh fool for not using pencil I hear you say, and it is true. But scratchings of a pencil are never as dramatic as a flourish of thick black marker when you start out. Such a shame the word permanent doesn’t really apply.

The bed looks rather promising and orderly and hopefully will yield my much desired Flowers For The House.

Most of my work on this bed took place with the background sounds of chirping birds and the persistent thwack of my neighbour’s mattock on some testy piece of solid ground. So that’s how he breaks up his soil. It looked exhausting. I tend to just cover mine with weed suppressing cloth and dig through the small incisions I make. And naturally my neighbour’s plot is much more productive. But I don’t think I could heft such an implement above my head, let alone into a ten foot square patch of clay soil.

More showers, shoes caked and making it hard to stomp about, I then got stuck into the corn.

I ate some of Mick’s corn last year and realised that it is possible to grow this rather lovely veg. Now that I have the extra space in the plot for such an extravagant space I planted up 20 corn seedlings in a square.

Quite fun really. But it was the equivalent of making mud pies. I ran out of the rich compost that most of the plants have been boosted with. So I had to make do with digging up the soil from a nearby space, heaping it in a bucket with plenty of water and scooping the soggy mess around each corn plant to really anchor it in. and if it doesn’t rain again for a while it will anchor in like cement. Are corn cobs thirsty plants too? Everything else but the potatoes seem to be that way. Gross feeders. Wonderful term for my cucumbers and soon to be pumpkins.

The sun came out and I was loathe to leave. That’s one of the beauties of no longer owning a watch. I completely lose track of time. I spent a happy late afternoon pruning off all the wild ivy growth on the fence (no birds nest, so I was safe) and generally sneezing persistently as I pootled about the side paths. I am threatening the strimmer again tomorrow, so I needed to cut the edge of the paths by hand. I don’t want a repeat of that shameful strimmer eating the cabbage netting incident of last month.

Mick came up to inspect – he always has complimentary things to say about the plot – and I took the opportunity to ask him about pumpkins. A good idea he thinks, and I can sink the plants into the manure bed as long as I put plenty of soil around the plants first to keep from burning the roots. I do love an expert. Who cares if three other people would give me contrary advice? I want to try and cover up the large amount of black cloth that still covers a quarter of the plot. I know I’m not going to be digging for any more crops this year. But it really is tahsome to have to look at it the whole time. And I do think I have used up my quota of mini bark chips for this season. So climbing and scrambling pumpkin patch it will have to be.

So first thing I will need to do tomorrow is dig a trench for the manure and plant in the little gross feeders and water and water and water like mad.

Tonight I will have to clean the strimmer and unearth the instructions. I was scrubbing my fingers of mud (didn’t succeed entirely) and tried to remember just which amount of choke was required, and how often I squeeze the fuel bulb before I start the monster machine up. Luckily I took an antihistamine pill to control the sneezing and it has made me so groggy that I know I will forget anyway even if I had remembered the sequence. Shall look for the instructions tomorrow.

First task was to battle the crowds on a bank holiday Sunday and buy another hose and attachment (praying to the god of fiddly metallic bits that these ones would connect to the elderly tap). I also scooped (hah! They weigh a ton) up two extra grow bags for the tomatoes and five foot long canes for the tomato supports.

These tomato grow bags are curious large plastic pillows full of the heaviest compost you can imagine. Miracle food for tomatoes and very moist. Hence the weight. And they are going to be the growing medium for my toms this year. Last year the soil was so hard and dry and I just didn’t feel that I gave my vegetables the best start. I did get plenty of tomatoes from last year’s crop – but they were on the small side. Perhaps that was due to the drought and my inability to go up and water every day, but this method looks worth a go.

I dug the trenches extra deep, hauled the grow bags into place and planted seven more tomatoes. The extra soil I took out of the trenches came in handy to put down at the potato rows. It just took ages.

Then it was joyous watering with a hose. I managed to connect the hose to the tap with a new attachment and run it as far as the wheelie bin. It filled in no time (which in allotment speak means it took much longer than one hoped). But then I thought – go for it. Attach the other 30 metre hose to this one (which I bought) and do the whole plot. Naturally the connectors don’t really speak each other’s dimensions, so I had to hold the two hoses shut and water like mad with a constant drip of water down my trousers and shoes. But it was a warmish sunny afternoon and so pleasing to give plants a proper watering for the very first time. Most of these potatoes and onions and garlic haven’t had a good drenching since they were planted six weeks back. 

The very second I stopped watering there was a sprinkle of rain – oh the irony. But it was merely a splatter of rain drops, and didn’t last.

Walking to my plot this morning from the car park I was hailed by Paddy, the other Irish gardener with the perfectly toiled soil. He wondered if I wanted his leftover tomato plants. They were grown in a greenhouse with plenty of extra heat, and were even in flower despite the early date. Naturally there was no time to be coy; I was delighted. And trotted up to my garden with an instant ready-made crop. My own tomatoes grown from seed may have been sturdier, but they were only six inches high. These beauties were over a foot high and some even taller. No idea with the varieties are – most people around here don’t bother with named varieties; they just save the seed from favourite ones from year to year and forget what they are called.

First I wanted to see if my new hose would fit the tap. I dragged the hose over to the tap (28 metres away and past some rather verdant nettle beds), pulled out all the attachments in the box…and found that not a single one would fit. Rats and other hissing words ending in ‘it’. I had so much hope for the hose. Frustrated but undeterred I even found myself holding the damn hose over the tap and just getting mightily splashed. I did this for about twenty minutes, so it meant I was able to drench the bean bed as it is close to the wheelie bin and generally spray water over most parts of the garden where the hose would reach. Tomorrow (or the next visit) I’m determined to get another attachment that fits.

Meanwhile it was back to the watering cans and buckets and wheelbarrow and endless trips.

The brassica bed (under a new net) is suffering from some sort of pest. I can’t see what it is, but it is nibbling away at the leaves. It will be a race to see if the plant can put on growth before it is entirely devoured. Some have taken root well and romped away, so it’s not all bad news. My brocoletto have flowered. Garish yellow flowers all over the tall plants. I don’t understand how you can avoid it happening; I don’t think they suffered too much from heat stress in the few weeks they have been in the ground. They did the same last year too. Mick is the one who has tutted over this phenomenon. Part of me wonders if this is perfectly natural and not to worry about it. And the other part thinks, failure again. Luckily I’m just going to avoid the problem and get on with planting out other things; who knows? They may produce some lovely tops despite the flowering.

I tucked the netting back around the perimeter of the cabbage patch and spied a cabbage moth butterfly trapped inside. How on earth did that get there? This is precisely the net that is supposed to keep the butterflies out. They lay eggs on the brassicas and wreak all kinds of havoc. I hunted about and managed to remove it, but did smile at the irony of all this netting business. Nothing will deter the determined.

I dug the trenches for the tomato grow bags. This is Paddy’s method which I want to copy. He hides the grow bags (and they are frankly scary in their bright red plastic coverings) at soil level and then puts back plastic over the top. I’m going to do the same, but cover mine with bark chips. I already had two grow bags purchased earlier in the year, and started with these for the new tomato plants. They are designed to take three tomato plants each, and I cut out the holes, watered like mad, and planted the three plants at equal distances in the bag. Staking, and placing of a small empty pot ready for easy watering, and it was done. They look rather fun.

As I was working Rino arrived and looked hurt that I had taken tomatoes from somebody else rather than him. He explained that he was growing seedlings for me in his greenhouse, and wanted me to collect them. At once. I felt most castigated as I plodded behind him to his greenhouse, but really there is no conspiracy; just someone offering me extra plants. The good thing was that Rino knew the Irishman’s name; I never did. So that’s another piece of the social jigsaw of the allotment gossip map sorted.  I can’t say he is mollified by the explanation that is was a spontaneous gesture, but I now have more tomato plants than I intended. Three from Rino, my own six grown at home, and the seven from Paddy. Quite a crop.

The sun was beating down quite fiercely by now, and I was pleased to be able to wear my new large-brimmed straw hat. I miss the one that is in storage waiting for its new life in France. We just didn’t imagine the house purchase would take until June (The latest issue is a possible goat track between our two houses which may or may not be a public right of way). And with a warmer than usual spring, the hat is sorely missed.

Back at home I took a tour of the seedlings on the terrace and planted up some sunflowers and extra purple sprouting broccoli this afternoon. I do so love the sowing process.

Shopping in Waitrose today buying groceries. It’s an expensive supermarket at the best of times, but time was short and needs must. I had to buy some more oatmeal to deter the slugs and found myself reaching for the only plain oatmeal on the shelf. Looking closely at the label and the price tag I found out it was organic and rather a special brand. Expensive organic oats for the slugs? Wait a minute – these creatures aren’t beloved pets, they are vermin. What was I thinking? Back they went and I hunted out a cheaper more scabby brand.

I’ll be shopping in pet food stores next.

Bought a hose too. It’s only 30 metres (100 feet) long, and I have no idea if it will reach the plot from the distant tap, having never paced out the path with a view to running a hose. But it’s an experiment I am willing to undertake. Another year of wheelbarrow and sloshing watering cans and buckets cannot be borne.