Early summer mornings, the best time of the day

When the sun is shining and it is lovely and warm, early mornings are brilliant.

I have loads to do, sowing seeds in the greenhouse and the garden, but as the sun gets higher in the sky during the day, the greenhouse becomes too hot to work in. So the weather this morning was perfect for greenhouse planting.

I've managed to sow butternut squash, marrows, courgettes (I grow both types despite being able to leave courgettes on to mature), my Mum and Dad's favourite veg for lunch in the summer are runner beans and marrow, so I grow lots of both. We love the courgettes as they are great on the barbecue and also can be marinated in a salad dressing, a favourite for breakfast too as courgette fritters, and this year I'm planning on growing enough so that I can cook the flowers.

Also sown are some Russian sunflowers which are giants, they will produce and amazing display at the edge of the garden, attract the bees and also provide valuable food for the birds in the winter. I have changed to single flowered varieties of all daisy type flowers as the doubles aren't good for the bees.

The apple cucumbers are in, the seed may be a bit old, but it's worth a try. Apple cucumbers are lovely, they also grow happily up wigwams if you remember to tie them in, this is great as you can pick them without bending down.

The seeds sown on the first bank holiday are now beginning to show their leaves, so are the weeds, so I will be out with the hoe later and trying to prevent them getting a foothold.

Time to go through my seed basket and work out what I need to sow next.

A gardeners work never stops.

Many hands make light work!

I love Bank Holiday weekends, the extra day means we get so much more done together. All the jobs can be cleared on the Saturday leaving time to start 2 day jobs.

My veg plot is split into 3 areas, we've been clearing as we go. Plot one is destined to be a fruit plot, we cleared it during the Easter break and planted a Medlar in the middle, I also moved my strawberries that had scattered themselves over plot 2. Ok, I know shallots are fruit, but they needed somewhere to go in, they are planted where my other fruit bushes will end up, currently in fruit in plot 2. I do have a plan, but it needs to bend sometimes. We've also added some wigwams of sweet peas, to bring in the pollinators and for cut flowers.

Plot two is the worst of the plots, so that gets to be the final destiny.

Over the weekend, we've reworked plot three, the old parsnips vanished, all top and no bottom. The peas have survived in the middle and now there are 8 varieties of beans planted. The only way to compare them is, for me to keep a close eye on their production.

4 types of stringless runner beans on a set of double canes crossed low (they should be easier to pick).

4 types of climbing French beans on 4 wigwams.

Both sets of beans have been catch cropped with lettuce or radishes.

I've also companion planted with border sunflowers at the back of the plot, and calendulas.

At the front, cornflowers and larkspur for cutting and nasturtiums to attract the blackfly off my plants. Sweet peas have been dotted amongst the beans to encourage pollinators.

After watering in, I've resorted to the dreaded slug pellets as we seem to have snail hotels rather than snail bars, I not feeding the hoards on my lovely young seedlings, so they can push off.

Time to watch the fruits of our labour blossom and grown and fingers crossed we should be seeing some results in a fortnight.

Vermin versus seedlings

Time to get even, those horrid little varmits have met their match. Sorry, but my vegetables come first, feeding the family is paramount and I object to the rodents eating my seeds and seedlings, so battle has been waged. When you cost out the seed I've bought, I cannot afford to keep the rodent population supplied with top quality seed and seedlings.
So far we have got 6 mice, 1 rat and 1 rat foot (don't ask). That's 2 mice traps fully functioning for the last 3 nights.
We are wondering if we put in 10 traps, would we get 10 mice at a time. I'm tempted, as despite the traps, the remaining troublemakers have eaten all of my peas and pea shoots, plus my broad bean seeds.
I've implemented a well known deterrent today on my fresh batch of broad beans, holly branches, which mice are supposed to hate as they get their nose covered in prickles, fingers crossed that I will still have some bean seeds in their root trainers when I check tomorrow.
The polytunnel is now wonderfully warm, I've watered well and sown lots of salad leaves, mizuna, rocket, salad onions and spinach. Hopefully there will be so many seedlings that the mice won't manage to eat them all. If they do, we will have very healthy mice and a not so happy gardener.
There is so much to do, but very little time to do it. Hurting my back last Sunday hasn't helped, I've been out of action ever since, so the shallots are still in their nets and not in the soil. I hope that nature will help me and they will catch up. I've decided to grow shallots instead of onions, they are sweeter and more productive in the space we have.
The forecast for tomorrow is brilliant, so I'm hoping that I may manage to get more crops sown and maximise on the lovely warm days.
I feel the need to browse the seed catalogues.

February sunshine (finally)

The weather has been atrocious this year, so much rain and strong winds. Luckily my polytunnel is still in one piece and despite the bad weather has been very warm inside. I had tried my luck with sowing some pea shoots, broad beans and salad leaves at the end of January, but the mice or some other furry vermin has decided that they were very nice and have demolished them already, so time to try again.

This is the first day so far that we have had sun and I haven't been working. So I've made the most of it, been in the polytunnel since 10.30 clearing up the trail of destruction from the mice and sowing masses of seeds in pots. I've put covers over the seeds that they tend to steal and hope that I may have something growing in a couple of weeks.

It was so warm inside, I've had to work with the door open and just a t shirt as it was so hot, no fleece jacket needed. Taking the odd break outside sat on my bags of new compost in a sheltered spot feeling the warmth on my face, those freckles are going to be appearing very soon.

Now to research what I need to do to prepare the soil for my shallots, if we get another day of good weather this week during half-term, I'm not holding my breath though.

The planning starts here.