A combination of not being able to plant out yet and then some travel meant that I had an almost 2 week break from the plot. The grass length attested to that, as did the geums, which were blooming beautifully. There are a number of seedlings appearing in the boundaries, but a proportion of them are just that little bulb thing that I can’t remember the name of.

I took a car-ful of plants down the plot – of course completely over-estimating my time and stamina. Note to self: you can only do a couple of jobs at a time; don’t fill the car with plants, because at the end of the day, you’ll just have to squash them into the shed (where a spider is making a horrible mess in the back corner).

My flowers have started blooming – last year’s calendulas, a few gladioli and the geums. It looks like I’m going to have quite a poppy-rich year. There are some fat buds and big plants coming along.

The apple tree isn’t quite done blooming, but the pears are busy developing now. Looks like it’ll be a pear-rich year too.

The ledge is coming to life with flowers. The sweet peas in the pots were not very happy because they were thirsty. They need to hurry up and get their roots out of the bottom of the pot and into the ground.

I picked out some weeds and unwound some bindweed. I also noticed Californian poppy seedlings – yay!

I opened up Bed 5, picked out a couple of weeds and then planted the 9 huge Fiesta sweetcorn and 2 gourds. I gave them all pockets of compost and Miracle Gro and used the newly taped copper rings. I covered the top of the bed with a layer of compost in an attempt to keep down the weeds that are now being hit by sunlight.

When I went back for a second shift, there was a bonus gift on the slope in front of the gate. A lovely big piece of bark, which I snaffled for my bug hotel.

I uncovered Bed 1 and first had to dig out a quantity of horsetail as best I could. Along the way I found a little toad who got in the way when I was then edging the bed, so I transferred him to Bed 10 for some peace and calm before I have to open that bed too.

I had broken one of the gourd plants when loading up the car, so planted 4 Turks turbans and only 1 gourd. With any luck a resow won’t take too long to catch up. I gave these plants the same compost pockets and mulched the big bed.