Saturday May 3rd
Still feeling rotten, but not as bad. Took up the packet of onion sets with the intention of planting them. Had to hoe off a lot of the PSB seedlings to do this, but the ones I dug up last week are doing well, away from the flea beetles! The other half of the bed by the shed is currently still full of seedlings in case the others get eaten. The biggest task today was the cabbage bed. It had been underneath carpet for a year, so I thought it would be fine. I´d bargained without creeping cinquefoil. It got under the carpet and had grown like mad, so had to dig and dig to get it out. Didn´t help that it rained yesterday and the soil under the carpet was rather soggy. There were also a lot of volunteer spuds (some edible!) and bindweed, so it took a while. Then hunted out the blue water pipe for the cover, stuck them in the ground and tied canes across the top for supports. Now all I have to do is harden off the cabbages which have got rather large in the shed... Hoed the weeds out of the half-garlic bed too, as the remaining area is going to acquire some of the novelty red and blue spuds courtesy of Chris.
 The last task was parsnips. What to do with them, since the parsnip bed is full of shallots. Decided that the raised carrot bed might be ok, given a year of fallow, and so I sowed an entire packet of Avonresister and some old Tender and Trues into that, and quite thickly. Not fresh seed as they should have been last year´s, but if a few grow, I´ll be happy. There´s half a dozen self-set ones as it is in the bed which will supposedly be getting squashes. So sweetcorn will be a smaller bed than before, but I´ll cope. That will need to be sown sometime this next week, ditto the cucurbits. Chris gave me more PSB and kale, and I helped myself to a crumble´s-worth of rhubarb! Sadly it´s not nearly as good as it used to be (needs a split?) but given the shop prices, I´ll gladly enjoy what´s there. Funny how I have got my taste for rhubarb back again. I think it´s because I gave up trying to eat it with sweeteners and went back to sugar. I figure I´d be better off eating sugar in moderation than sweeteners in bulk, as I feel a lot better for a year off aspartame etc. thanks to being pregnant. Roll on the gooseberry crumbles, and it´s a Bramley year again!
It´s also my plot anniversary. I´ve had it for an unbelieveable seven years!

Sunday May 4th
Sowing session at home. Now have 30 dwarf bean Opera (two per medium module) and 15 runner Enorma. Old seed again, but I´ll give them a couple of weeks. If they haven´t sprouted by then, I´ll consider getting some new ones!

Monday May 5th
More potting - this time more of a reshuffle.  The chillies are now in larger pots, with two of them having quite noticeable flowers on already. They all had very good root systems. The cabbages moved from the hot potting shed out to the cold frame, and the remaining tomatoes flitted from the conservatory to the shed. So did the aubergines. I hope they didn´t get too cold overnight! But they should be fine. It´s been getting to 35^oC in there! The little gooseberry that I had once taken as a cutting from one of the green ones up at the plot is now quite a decent little plant in a pot. It was supposed to be a gooseberry fan, but got a bit leggy and is now a bit oddly-shaped. Nevertheless, there´s some teeny berries on it! If I need to raze the mess of gooseberry bushes at the plot, I´ll at least have a replacement, and one with its top growth on a foot-high leg too, so easier to maintain.

Saturday May 24th
Well I was hoping to have some photos for this entry but a bit of rain and the need to be home for feeding time caused me to have to run for it! Got up to the plot about 12.10pm after getting the small person down for his nap. Lugged up 30 minicole cabbages, minus a cluster of cabbage white butterfly eggs I´d found on the back of one of them. Can´t even leave them in a cold frame without needing defences! But they´d hardened off nicely, so out they went. Not the greatest of positions - right under the Bramley - but the rotation said they go there, so... Got some tea and cake from the focal point, then started on the cabbages. Didn´t need to put collars round them, since the enviromesh will keep out the flies. Planting out was the easy bit - the hard part was arguing with the Enviromesh and getting it into position before nailing it down with wire hoops. But after the wild success of the mesh at protecting the red cabbages a couple of years ago, I had to extend this to the minicoles. If they don´t suffer the usual flea beetle check, it should gain me the lost weeks in planting out. In any case, I now read the EU has banned derris as there´s not a sufficient amount of data on safety. Only been used for how many decades???? But possibly linked to Parkinson´s, which is terrible, so I guess a fair call. Anyway, with the ultra-fine Enviromesh I shouldn´t need any derris.
When I´d got it all into its little tunnel, went to have a chat to Chris, then to pull some rhubarb and hopefully to pull another clump of immature garlic for use as spring onions with attitude. I got as far as the rhubarb when it began to rain, and since I couldn´t easily get into the orchard area to get more, I yanked out a garlic (which is bulbing!) and ran for it, about 13.35pm so a fair bit done for just over an hour. Needed more time up there really but forecast for the rest of the weekend was torrential rain (and it was, too - about 2" of it...).

Sunday May 25th
Potted on some chillies, of which a couple are now flowering. Sowed yet more beans, given sciarids had managed to devastate all but two plants of the first sowing (including all the dwarf beans). Not enough seed for sweetcorn so shall need to get more. I really should get some predators for the sciarid flies as they´re taking over despite the yellow stickies. Bah. But at least the chillies are doing ok - much bigger and more compact plants than the last time we tried and all because we were more careful over the potting on. We managed a grand total of ten: three UFO (which are probably Scotch Bonnets - Capsicum chinense), three Old Mother´s (Capsicum baccatum), one Jalapeño (Capsicum annuum), one Cherry Bomb F1 (Capsicum annuum), one Thai Dragon (Capsicum annuum) and one (hugely tall) Friar´s Hat (Capsicum baccatum).