The first job was to put up the two wigwams for the beans. When we took back half the plastic on the back bed we found one of the big toads and the little one too. I hope they’re able to hide in the cool under the shed when all the plastic is gone. Who knew black plastic was so good for nature?!

Mum put the purple bell vine in against the back fence for me, magically getting them in, in spite of the chicken wire that goes down into the ground. Some of them have good tendrils, so I hope they’ll get going now. I’ve put slug pellets down, but the bushy plants don’t really suit the copper rings. Go, perennials!

I’ve determined that these frondy seedlings should indeed be my chrysanthemums – and there are quite a few of them in the bed, so fingers crossed that bed might just turn out as planned.

There are lots – but not too many? – of apples coming.

I put the home-sown nasturtiums all along the trellis. I’ve not put collars around them, as it looks like I didn’t in previous years. The slugs are out in greater numbers at the moment, so I must salt them when I see them now that I’m planting out. I’ve been ignoring numbers of them in favour of carrying on with the task at hand.

I put a couple of leggier nasturtiums in the ground by the pear tree after clearing out the weeds and cutting back the elder, which had sprouted from the big stump again.

Over on the right hand side a lot of weeds have sprung up, which is pain, because I’ve cast seed there. I’ve started trying to at least thin the weeds to give my seed room if it tries.

At the shed the cosmos in the pot is still alive and in the compost patch in the flower bed, seedlings have appeared. Please be the flax and not just weeds! Further down the left hand bed Mum and I both did some weeding. It’s leaving a lot of bare earth, but the verbenas are growing and I’ve got the angelonia serena coming as “garden ready plants” in a couple of weeks. The ground needs to be ready for them to go straight in  – and that includes me knowing where I want to put them. And they’re perennials. Yay!

The geums have had their first little deadhead session. Mr H mentioned dividing them and sure enough I can do that in the autumn. I should really get some others too.