First time driving down this season, so I took the strimmer with me and did all the edges. In  the afternoon I mowed on 1 too, so everything’s neat for a while.

I set about re-gluing the beach patch and while I was at the pond I saw my first bee fly. It was interested in the blue flowers. On the other bank one of the white mazus has reappeared. I think the other one might be gone. I’ve put stones back on the beach and I’ll refill in a few days. Hopefully I’ll have enough rainwater in my butts for it. Rain is coming soon – we’ve had dry weather for so long, a complete reversal of last year.

Two robins were constantly gathering food from the plot. They’ve evidently made a nest in the neighbouring damaged shed.

I spread more flower seed in Bed 1 and in the front, left and right borders. It got a vague covering of compost at the end of the day, but really needs to be watered. The successional sowing should still do ok, as there are various green seedlings now popping it. I think it’s all at the point of leaving it for a few weeks in order to determine between flowers and weeds. Related: I think I’ve found the leaves of a dog violet in the woodland bed.

• (Big?) poppies: left and front
• Corn cockle: back of left bed, back of ledge
• Poached egg plant: front, left corner 3
• Iceland poppies: front left of 1, right between bear’s breeches and feeder
• Red poppy: bed 3
• Godetia: front, patches in triangle and to gate
• Flax: right of 1
• Cornflowers: over previous sowing 1, left in first gap, first gap left border, woodland bed
• Cerinthe: front, woodland
• Purple candytuft: front, left in front of teasel
• Greater knapweed,  few seeds left of Veronica

I cleared another quarter or so of the ledge, but had to make myself stop as at that point I’d not covered all the other seed. I’m planning to sow flax in the gaps I’m making on the ledge.

When I returned to the car I found three great big molehills had appeared while I’d been working.

The pond was super low and the water was all filmy. Best guess, the water dropped enough that the birds felt happy enough to get right in, splash about and empty it further. I refilled it up over the beach, so now it’s wait and see.

I sowed a half row each of beetroot and carrot. The whole bed is now under cover to protect it.

The Veronica has now made an appearance, so I took down all the dead stalks. From there I weeded more of the left border, taking out cress and grass. That bed’s about done now.

I wasn’t able to resist plants at the garden centre sale, so I’ve added 3 heucheras to the fern bed. From left to right: Leuchtafer, Coral bells, Ruby bells.

We put the  runner bean and cucumber wigwams up and took another branch off the apple tree, which had some scab.

I weeded about half the ledge and discovered a couple of smalls pieces of Californian poppy. I thought they were gone, so hopefully they’ll survive.