Phew, what a scorcher!

Tomatoes are in the growbags at long last. Three I've grown from seed and three seedlings I bought or Susan bought. They are in a corner of the conservatory with a wigwam contraption over them to deter the cat (hopefully).

As our heatwave continues, I wonder what copious watering means and why we don't have a hosepipe. The answer to the latter is that we have never managed to get a tap fixture that actually fitted. Perhaps we always aimed for cheap and got what we paid for.

Susan says you have to play it by ear when it comes to watering and I suppose it's exercise for me to keep going backwards and forwards to the kitchen to fill the watering can and bucket.

Something for nothing

Well, earthing up the spuds has been done and I hope properly. As I worked the soil it, I became bathed in perspiration really quickly and realised how unfit I am. Really need to do something about this.

The postwoman came while I was in the garden and brought the BBC Dig In seeds I sent for some time ago. This has been massively oversubscribed and it's not hard to see why. Who could turn down the offer of lettuce, beetroot, carrot, squash and tomato - all for free. The little booklet that came with the packets is clear as clear can be and I will certainly be planting some of the seeds. Squash particularly intrigues me. Do we grow it much in this country?

I see from the Dig In website that DJ Sara Cox has a blog detailing her efforts as she grows her own grub for the first time and I make a mental note to read it occasionally.

A sluggish day

Sheltering indoors from the rain this morning, I muse over that old saying ne'er cast a clout...etc. We shouldn't really be surprised about English weather, but would do well to remember these adages. Wisdom in a sentence.

I also fell to thinking about slugs and nematodes. My mate Steve has filled me in on them and says they tried them once, some years ago. The result? "The slugs and snails were unaffected and we were poorer."

He goes on to give me the information that nematodes include the threadworms that infest cats and dogs and I tell him that I definitely won't be using them because of our pets. Ah, not so simple, says Steve.

The phylum Nematoda is vast. The intestinal parasites found in vertebrates are passed on via eggs in the host's faeces, and then ingested by another host. Some of the nematode species are very host specific, but others will infest a wide range of hosts. The slug killer only zaps the slimy bastards, with no effect on vertebrates. Some nematodes are plain weird: one species lives only in the felt beermats that were used in German bierkellars.

His technique is to clout slugs with a hammer. His wife Marianne says that's too brutal: she stands on them. End result is the same.

My plans for tomorrow include earthing up of the spuds now they have reached the suggested height of about 8in. The internet is a great invention and includes an incredibly handy video on the Videojug website.

I marvel at how I'm quite happy to look at it, yet would shun any TV programme called How To Earth Up Potatoes. Some 17,000 people have viewed it. Mind you, there have been 779,360 hits for their video on how to get out of the car without showing your knickers.

I suppose I ought to say that I resisted the temptation.

Danger lurks

Susan has again warned me of the possibility of slugs attacking the crops. Now comes news from the Guardian's allotment blog of their plot coming under attack from these pesky creatures. Even their rampant Cherokee Trail of Tears are being held in check, says the blog. Oh no, what if it happened to my precious Cherokee Trail of Tears?

The Guardian man's solution has been to use nematodes, something I have never heard of and will have to look up. I notice that someone has posted a comment on the blog describing nematodes as a microscopic species-specific parasite and that another poses the question of whether they are actually safe.

Still another person says they have used 'organic' slug pellets. Seems a contradiction in terms to me.

Lettuce pray

Just as the pattern yesterday, the heavy rain of the morning stopped and I was able to go out into the garden again. Unlike yesterday, though, I had to come in after 90 minutes when a shower developed.

I achieved my goal for the afternoon. Which was to dig out the old lettuce and salad leaf patch and get the new lettuce and spinach in. The spinach, by the way, is a Cogarde (Oak Leaf), chosen from many varieties by me at Dove Cottage Nursery because of the slight association with where we live - Broad Oak Place. Let's hope it takes.

Did a bit more lawn edging (all the big jobs) and managed to mow the grass, something I had not done for about 10 days. Hadn't grown much though.


I have also started some of the sprouting seeds which daughter Dorothy gave me for my birthday. One is a rather exciting Melange Gourmet, made by A Vogel, pioneers in natural health since 1923, and is made up of quinoa, white radish and lentils. Should be ready in 3-5 days, as will the alfalfa seeds I have also started. Got a book too from Dorothy on recipes for sprouting seeds and am looking forward to using it. But I do confess I'm unsure about sprouting seed milk shake.

A perfect day (and not in a Lou Reed way)

Heavy rain kept me out of the garden again yesterday, but it brightened up around 2.0 and became exceptionally nice outside.

I was able to get out on the vegetable patches for a satisfying couple of hours of weeding, planting and generally mooching around. But not before we took a small trip to the very splendid Dove Cottage Nursery just a short hop from our house, where I bought some spinach and lettuce seedlings. I also took a punt on heritage tomatoes - a Red Russian and a Bonny Best (nice title).

Back at home I finally transplanted the runner beans which Susan gave me for my birthday and they are now nestling against one of the two wigwams built previously. Cherokee Trail of Tears will be ready to go out in next couple of days. Susan says reassuringly that the next thing is I will discover they have been eaten by slugs. Will I be upset, she asks. Who knows?

The tomatoes I was growing in the conservatory have turned into five seedlings, and have now been put into individual pots, although it looks as though one has died. Intend sorting out growbags for them soon. Reminded myself that this variety goes by the name of Outdoor Girl.

Had this message the other day from former work colleague Hilarie to tell me her vegetable growing isn't going too well:

Our allotment is completely waterlogged but the strawberries are blooming. Runner beans look moth eaten and the lettuce failed to germinate due to the cold and damp. Trying again with pak choi. Even the courgettes look sickly. If we were medieval peasants this would be very worrying indeed.

In the circumstances, I needn't feel too bad about my lettuces and salad leaves. I intend this afternoon to dig over their bit of ground and put in the spinach and lettuce seedlings I got at Dove Cottage.

Rounded off yesterday afternoon by doing some lawn edging and removing some nettles. Susan told me to take the sensible precaution of rolling my sleeves down. I did - I stung my ear.

All in all a very productive time and a well-earned beer at the end of the day. Seemed apt that it was a Combined Harvest made by Bateman's, a Lincolnshire brewery I was introduced to when my daughter studied at the University of Lincoln. Fine beers come from here.

Present state of affairs

I needn't have been concerned about the garden drying up while we were away on our short road trip - it's been wet for days here in Yorkshire now. Not a lot of gardening has been done in the last three or four days.

Current state is: Potatoes coming on OK, ditto onions, garlic and chives. Lettuce and salad leaves appear to have failed to germinate. Rhubarb which looked as though something had sat on it now perking up somewhat. Runner beans and Cherokee Trail of Tears in the conservatory now ready to go out, I reckon. Must think about transferring tomatoes to growbags.

And - which bloody cat left its poo on the ground where the lettuce and salad leaves are supposed to be?

We're going on a summer holiday. To make our dreams come true. For me and you.

Fun and laughter on a summer holiday.
No more worries for me and you.
For a week or two.

We're heading off north tomorrow towards Hadrian's Wall, somewhere we have never been. Actually, it's only three or four days. But it does raise a concern which I am sure worries all gardeners and allotment holders. How will the crops get on without tender love and care?

They will get a good watering tonight, but after that they're on their own until our return. Hope they cope.

The rhubarb is dead, long live the rhubarb!

Surveying a small patch beside the wall, I decided that the rhubarb I planted last year is never going to show its head above ground. Something must have had it or something must have gone seriously wrong below surface, but I feel it should have grown a bit by now.

Luckily, and very gratefully received it is, my friend Kate has given me a rhubarb crown she does not have room for in her new garden and I have now planted this in. Hopefully, this will thrive. While digging the hole I could find no sign of the previously planted rhubarb. Strange.

It also looks as though the lettuce and salad leaves I planted out recently have had it. Nothing has shown through and I reckon it should have done by now. This is the patch of ground where I have seen birds pecking away. Will have to rethink this part of the garden and decide what to do with it.

Am I dispirited? No. Winning some and losing some is all part and parcel of gardening.

One thing I am delighted about is that the mushrooms I have been cultivating have grown well and are coming through. We shall be having some tonight in a stew. Good stuff!

Sunday meditation

Time marches on and I am 58 today, a world away from the callow youth of 18 who left home in the south to go to university in Yorkshire. Since the start of this year I have been reading a poem a day, in an effort to understand and appreciate that most curious of literary forms. It still doesn't come easily or naturally to me, but I was particularly struck by a work called Leisure, written by W H Davies, who lived from 1871 to 1940 and is now best remembered as the author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. If he is remembered at all, that is.

The opening lines of his poem go:

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

Davies's words have a particular resonance for me in my changed circumstances and present frame of mind and I remember them on this special day.

Presents galore

I went to a car boot sale today determined to come back with a spade to replace the one I broke with my own brute strength the other day.

Mission accomplished. Or rather it was Susan who was successful in buying one as a present for my birthday tomorrow. Not gift wrapped, because it was suspected I would guess, but presented to me on the spot. And a very fine Brades Skelton spade it is. The man who sold it to her said it was a good one - he could hardly say anything else, but I can certainly appreciate its qualities. Let's hope it survives the masculine strength that is me.

There was more from Susan at the car boot sale in the shape of rhubarb, tomato, pepper and runner bean seedlings. I was especially pleased to get the rhubarb as I think I have given up on the rhubarb I planted last year. Still hasn't appeared above the soil. Let's hope the new one does better when I eventually transplant it.

My friend Jan, who also visited the boot sale, presented me with a herb cutter. I had been very jealous of the one she had in her kitchen last time I visited. I notice now the one she has given me is called a mincing knife. I'm grateful, all the same.

A squatter arrives

We have discovered an interloper in our shed - a bird's nest in the far top corner. Neither of us can tell whether it is currently in use, but our feeling is that it is old. Quite how long it has been there, we don't know, but neither of us had noticed it before this week. We haven't gone that close to it because of stuff in the way, but have decided to leave it well alone and let the birds get on with it.

Looking out of the window this morning, I saw one of our collared doves strolling over the ground where the lettuce and salad leaves are supposed to be, having the occasional peck on the ground. Should I have been mad? I don't know, but somehow I can't bring myself to do anything but shrug my shoulders. That's nature, I guess.


Surveying the land on the first day of May, I am pleased to see the plants bursting into life after days of sunshine and rain. The onions and chives are coming on apace, chives beginning to flower, and the potatoes are showing through nicely. Not so sure about the lettuce and salad leaves, though. Perhaps that pesky bird has done for them.

Yesterday I finally got round to planting out the raspberry canes and building a wigwam in preparation for the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans. Seemed an apt arrangement for them.

I have started off some basil seeds in the conservatory.