Wow, the Courgettes only took six days to germinate!!! They started poking up yesterday. I may have done a little sex wee.....

I think I saw the first signs of life in the onion bed this morning, and, unbelievably, the runner beans are coming up. I really thought they would have been munched by slugs as I had planted them straight into the ground, but no, they are little fighters. The Sweet peas don't seem to have grown much, if at all since they were planted out. I think I should have maybe held off planting them outside without hardening them off first. Plus, it did say on the packet of seeds that they really shouldn't be planted outside until May. Same as the Runner Beans. Oooops!

A mixture of sunshine and showers today. Managed to mow the back lawn, and pulled up a load of weeds off the path.

There is a rogue element in the Potato bed. An imposter, which is not of Maris Piper origin. I noticed it this morning. It could well be the remnants of the huge 25kg sack of spuds we bought for a fiver off.... well, to be honest they probably fell off the back of a lorry in all honesty, but they were very tasty so Jas popped a few of the ones that had sprouted onto the window sill to chit next to the Maris Piper seed potatoes. I planted them in the corner of the bed on the same day as the Maris Pipers.

All this "you must earth-up spuds"lark is really confusing me. Do you cover the leaves? Hmmmm probably best I look it up me thinks.

The rain finally came yesterday. It's amazing how much it freshened up the atmosphere. The grass is beginning to look like grass again and not straw, the spuds are really starting to flourish, and the Sunflowers which only poked their little heads above the soil 4 short days ago, are between three and four inches high now, and taking over my living room window sill. The peppers are looking lovely; I'll re pot them into 12.5cm pots in the next few days. The tall Nasturtiums have germinated, as have the tomato plants.

The seeds from the BBC's Digin campaign arrived this morning, so I sowed the 5 Butternut Squash seeds (Hunter variety), some of the Tomato seeds (Gardener's Delight), a row of Bolthardy Beetroot. I sowed a pot of French Dwarf mix Marigolds outside.

I came to a bit of a scary revolation today - what the heck am I going to do with all the flowers I have sown from seed? It's my own fault; I should have read the back of the pack properly. I now realise that the original pack of Nasturtiums were of the tall, single mixed variety. How the feck did I think that a 1.8m plant would fit in between our onion and leek beds!??!!?!?!?!?

It has been a very warm month or two now, with temperatures in the 60's, although I'm pretty sure it has been warmer. We dug another border over yesterday. I had my heart set on a lovely border full of colour with annual flowers. Jason however, brought a load more seeds back, so it looks like my colourful dream border will have to wait. Still though, not bad for nine hours work eh! I'll finish it off tomorrow.



So, onto today. Well firstly, I went back to work after being ill for two months. Bought a mix of 6 peppers from Wilko. Red, green and yellow, about 3 inches high at the moment. Not bad for 3 quid. Wilko also had herbs on sale, 50% off, so I bought some and they are now all potted up on the kitchen window sill.

THE POTATOES ARE GROWING!!!!!!!!!!!!



We also have some growing action coming from the lettuce and sunflowers. Isn't it great when you hard labour starts to show signs of success :-)

Jason made another small raised bed. Just got to decide what should go in there!

Well yesterday was insanely busy planting, digging, swearing.....

Me and my dear son went to Wilko to get supplies. We bought planting troughs, seedling trays, multi-purpose plant food and 100 litres of compost. Which we had to carry back home. Using the bus. Still though, it has been great to get some nutrients into our clay soil, which in the glorious weather we're having right now is like grey dust. Useless.

We sowed Ailsa Craig onions and Musselburgh Leeks in the plot. The compost really holds onto moisture - brilliant! We used the hoe to remove about 5 inches of soil, replaced with compost, set the seeds, and covered them in a thin layer of compost.

We sowed Mesembryanthemum (mixed) into seed trays to go out the front, and Nasturtium (tall single mixed) in trays to be planted in amongst the veggies, to hopefully deter pests.

We planted three strawberry plants in one of the troughs. The planting instructions were naff to be honest, but I think the plants will be OK (touch wood). In another trough we planted Webbs Wonderful lettuce. I found a large planter lying around which I filled with compost and planted the Raspberry cane, stick, erm..... whatever it was, it looked like a stick.

Today was time to re-seed the grass in the front. Had to remove a lot of Ground Elder which was a pain, but hopefully when the grass grows better it will be drown out. Gave the sprinkler a go, attracting every kid in 100 mikle radius it seems. What is it about sprinklers that makes kids flock to you?

It's amazing how far we've come in a few short weeks. Our patch is definately starting to take shape, and caring for it is something I am quite fanatical about . Jason built a raised bed out of dry-stone walling. He's so tired, but what a fantastic job he did! I sowed a few rows of Nantes carrots in there this evening.



Also sowed sunflower seeds (Giant), and tomato (Money Maker) into trays indoors. The raised bed would be perfect for the outdoor tomatoes, as it has full sun for most of the day.

Here is a piccy of the main plot. The light was fading, but you get the idea.

Our vegguie patch's humble beginning, will post another piccy when it's fully dug over (see ya in 10 years then)

Twinkle died yesterday. Play hard at the bridge, little girl xxx