… and the slugs/snails eat your seedlings. Have lost some lettuce and chervil planted out in the garden, even though there are slug traps with beer in. I should put some more traps out, and go hunting more often.

Yesterday, sowed a load more seed. I started squashes and pumpkins, 4 seeds each of Black Futsu, Rouge Vif D’Etampes and Hokkaido. Also started in modules, Giant Prague celeriac, various salads including Webbs Wondeful, Lettuce Milan, Osaka Purple & Red Giant mustards, Giant Red celery, nasturtiums, marigolds and various herbs including sage, cumin, lime basil…. Yesterday, I also soaked some lentils, linseed, mung beans and adzuki beans for sprouting.

Today was a perfect day. I sat in the garden reading the ish Bible, as well as watching the bees buzz around. There were also quite a few wasps too.

At the plot, sowed a whole bed of White King parsnips, and chucked in some Sandwich Giant salsify and Amsterdam Forcing carrots for good measure! Decided that the newspaper seed tapes had failed so sowed some Chantenay carrots as a replacement. Also sowed some more broad beans - Vectra, beetroot - Boltardy, and Scorzonera.

What a week it has been. We’ve caught some sort of bug - cough, sore throat, blocked nose, hot/cold thing. I nearly lost my voice! Yesterday, I received the ish Bible but was too tired to read more than a few pages (what I read was good, well done Andy & Dave). I was even too tired to be enthusiastic about receiving the various sprouting (+other) seeds I ordered. The sprouting seeds I have  are Red clover, Adzuki beans, Fenugreek, Mung beans, Mustard, Lentils brown & green, Linseed, Chickpeas and Alfalfa.  

Saturday was a seed sowing day. I sowed in modules/Rootrainers: Shchavel Sorrel; Belize, Rubens Red Cos and Little Gem lettuces; Chervil; Russian Mammoth Sunflower; White Lisbon Spring Onion; Cauliflowers Violet Queen and All the Year Round; Romanesco and Romanesco Natalino; Cabbages Primo (Golden Acre), Greyhound, Marner Storing Red and Kalibos; Brussels Sprouts Darkmar 2, Bedford Fillbasket and Seven Hills; Waltham Calabrese; Hungry Gap and Ragged Jack heritage Kales; Glaskin’s Perpetual rhubarb; Crystal Lemon cucumber; Albarello di Sarzana courgettes.

OH had finished cutting the hedge down in the allotment. Above is a picture of the hedge taken in November last year. The flowers are nice but the hedge was getting a bit large and providing a dumping ground for rubbish. Below, hedge is gone. We’d like to put a new hedge there with currants - the early flowers attract bumblebees (have spotted mainly the buff-tailed bumblebee around the currants in my garden).

Yesterday, OH decided to mow the lawn I mean, daisy patch. He wanted a Horlicks before he finished the edges. This morning, I discovered he had forgotten to bring the mug in, and I found 2 dead slugs in the dregs. The big jar of Horlicks is empty, except for a teaspoon or so stuck at the bottom - perhaps I’ll put that out as slug bait as well as (or instead of) beer.

It was a nice day on Saturday. All the remaining seed spuds went in: Sante; Early Puritan; Highland Burgundy Red; Picasso; Robinta; Harmony; Record; Pentland Ivory; Pentland Dell; Verity; Pink Fir Apple; Golden Wonder; Kerrs Pink. Sowed Fennel, Ukranian beetroot, Walla Walla onion, Egyptian Turnip Rooted beetroot, and Amsterdam Forcing carrots. No sign of any of the newspaper seed tapes germinating - weather may have been too cold; will give it another chance later this month.

OH was chopping down the hedge (it was a bit wild and out of control). He stopped when he saw a blackbird nest on Friday (there was a chick and egg in it). On Saturday, apart from a partially hatched egg (chick died), the nest was empty. He feels bad about not checking to see if there were any nests…. Overhead, members of the crow family were flying with bits of twig in beak for nest building. OH saw another blackbird taking twigs for nesting in the main hedge down the length of the allotment site, and maybe “our” blackbird has relocated.