When the Going Gets Tough

I have been slaughtering the innocent, or as it’s known, thinning out and potting on. As I worked, I thought of Pam’s terminology of the ones you cull being volunteers. I haven’t heard that terminology before and whilst it made me a bit sad, the thought of them sacrificing themselves for the greater good crossed my mind more than once.

The survivors

I’ve sown some more tomatoes, some of which were seeds I got free with Gardener’s World magazine. In fact, I had three lots of those, as my Mum, who also gets GW mag gave me her packet and my sister handed over hers. Both of them are gardeners, but neither grow seeds. I passed on one of the three packets to Julie ND.

This afternoon the girls sowed ten sunflower seeds each. Jenny used the Giant Yellow seeds that have a sunny sunflower face on the packet. Rosie did half of those ones, and half from the mixed packet that were in the selection of seed packets I bought earlier today (because, of course, I don’t have enough seeds yet). I put some courgette seeds in, plus some basil seeds in a tray. My other basil seeds have not materialised at all, which I’ve found very perplexing, so I thought I’d start again. Then I did the thinning and tidied up (I add that last bit about tidying up, because I’m not so good about that usually). My Hubby looks out of the kitchen window and the lawn is strewn with evidence of my propagation activities, sometimes for days on end.

These are fun. Pepper seeds embedded in paper disks. A lot less fiddly, although of course not very economical.

Rosie, the saviour of all creatures, rescued a slug from the allotment at the weekend. We thought it looked very interesting with its yellow and brown stripe. I asked her to take it as far away as possible from our – down by the river would do. If Julie had been there, it would have been dispatched swiftly.

Another survivor