slugs, snails and puppy dogs tails!

Its the 1st of June today, but does the weather reflect this? NO in fact that's a big NO - where is the sun shine? It's been cloudy all day today - that is apart from now 1755hrs and after 2 visits to the lotty already, the sun has just peaked from behind the clouds - typical as I am sat here on the sofa with a glass of wine and typing up my blog!

The title of this post today, is courtesy of Doug. He walked through the gate and I said "Hello Doug," to which he replied "Hello." "How are you?" I enquired & his answer was - "I'd be alright if it wasn't for all the slugs and snails"in a very glum voice. Well I couldn's resist and asked "What about the puppy dogs tails Doug - how are you getting on with those?" I think I saw a glimmer of a smile, as he carried on walking down the path towards his own plot.

Well let me tell you about my day. I went to the lotty at around 10am and bought some 8ft canes, multi purpose compost and horse manure + the services of a tall man for the canes !

John kindly delivered the heavy stuff for me and after a tour of "this side" of the plot (he is from the other side - of the lotty I mean) I got on with planting my tomatoes.

Now before you get excited and think that I have cleared more of my plot - the answer is simple - grow bags & grow pots! Yes you read it right. I put grow bags on my plot 144! They look something like this.......

So I now have 6 "normal" tomato plants growing in front of the runner bean wigwam.

At 12 I had to go home and I returned at around 2pm. My intention was to plant my cobra bean plants which have been in my cold frame, but Nigel must have been well busy (bless his cotton socks - he was probably planting some of his 200+ broad bean plants !!!) as my canes were still on the floor/soil. To my great fortune I was rescued by Paul and Dr. Doom.

This IS Dr. Doom!

Paul kindly put up the wigwam for me whilst Dr. Doom looked on and breathed like Darth Vader. So the Cobra bean project was still on schedule! Hooray!!

They can be differentiated from the runner beans as the leaves are more crinkley &

the fact that the seed pod is half way up the stalk!

I also made up a sign "free to a good home" as mentioned on my earlier blog of today, so hopefully someone will want them and take them to a good planting place.

I then returned to plot 142 to have a natter with my co allotmenteer Susan and her husband Robert who were busy weeding away. I also weeded around and about and thinned my carrots and beetroots. I also discovered that I might have a pumpkin growing as there is a little round ball underneath one of the flowers! How very exciting it all is!

Robert complimented me on my lovely radishes that I shared with them the other week. I have sown some more between the parsnips and will probably sow another lot between the brussels as there seems to be a bit of space available here now.

In my Bed #2 - the sweet pea, chilli & pepper bed I planted some more tomatoes - a mixture of marmande, cercise & normal where the garlic failed. I have now taken the poly tunnels from the previous planted tomatoes (see "Read all about it - my 1st radishes") and they are doing VERY well - well I think they are anyway!

What a busy busy day! I just hope that the weather is good to us all - vegetable growers worldwide for the next few months.

A greeting to my worldwide bloggers -

"Sawadeeka" (Thai) "Namaste" (India) "Bonjour" (France) "Guten Tag" (German) "Buon giorno" (Italy) "Merħba" (Maltese) "G'day" (Australia) "Hi" (USA) "Selamat datang" (Malaysia) "Jambo" (Kenya) "salaam aleikum"(Arabic) "konnichiha" (Japanese) "Hola" (Spain)