Foliage of golden dogwood and euonymus reappear when I clear spring plants
While everywhere yellow flowers burst open
bidens		broom		Welsh Poppy
		The gaudy modern pansy and the gentler ruffled beloved of Victorians
		In the pond
	The Flag Iris		The Water Buttercup		The Mimulus

Then suddenly we have a heatwave. The sodden ground dries and before we know it the soil turns to concrete and we have to start watering.

I ordered two ton of pebbles this month to finish the paths. Here are my elder grandchildren shifting them for me.

 

Fed up with constant weeding I have started laying black membrane over the ground between permanent planting and covering it with shreddings. The only drawback is it will deprive me of many 'freebies' - forget-me-nots, foxgloves, poached egg plants, that give colour after the daffs finish.

The black membrane is expensive and there is a limit to how many shreddings I can create so for the courgettes and dahlias I use perforated clear plastic from a bargain roll I bought several years back and cover it with dried weeds. I also use any spare plastic sacks. However there are still vast areas of the garden I haven't treated in this manner and the weeds are swamping them still. The potato and cabbage patches are on my to do l

 

In fact the whole vegetable garden is a mess. Slugs and weeds took a hold in the wet weather. I had to replant runner beans. Even mange tout which are generally left alone held up leafless stems and it is the first time I have found the early tubers of Arran Pilot riddled with slugs. Every lettuce and cabbage has to be picked through carefully and large areas discarded.

The cucumbers I bought from Care turned out to be ridge ones

I will not grow Holiday again. It gave a good crop but even when picked young the peas tasted starchy.

The broad beans set badly. I waited too long for "enough to make it worth picking" and ended up with tough ones.

Tomatoes. Late setting this year except for Tornado - an outdoor tomato. It is covered with tomatoes. If the flavour is any good I will get it again next year.

Courgettes - going well except a fox has made its sun bed on one of them.

I sowed my cut and come again lettuce just before the heat wave. I was resigned to failure as most lettuces won't germinate if it is too hot but I notice some have come through. I have never had a complete failure when sowing these as I have done with other varieties.

NB I must put membrane over all the vegetable beds by the end of NOVEMBER and start off all my peas under plastic.