Planting out and more sowing

The children are now starting to complain that their windowsills have been requisitioned for so long...but of course as one batch goes outside to start hardening off, the next batch of something else has been sown and requires indoor cossetting!

And so it continued today, as the second (more successful) batch of pumpkins went out to the greenhouse this morning (the soaking overnight of the pumpkin seeds worked! Who knew? Must remember this next year...) so this evening a massive selection of tender beans were sown in pots and brought inside:

1. Runner beans - Grandma's saved seed from various, unknown, years
2. Runner beans - 'Best of All' old packet so we shall see...
3. Dwarf French Beans - 'Sonesta' yellow podded - my favourite
4. French Bean 'Slender' - Grandma's saved seed again, not indicated if climbing or dwarf
5. Climbing French Bean 'Cobra' - I don't normally bother with climbing french but I couldn't resist the promise of 'Violet flowers', it's an old packet, again left by Grandma, so they may not germinate, but you never know...

First batch of broads looking good!

I also sowed another batch of Broad Bean 'Green Windsor', as the first batch are now well over 2 feet high, flowering well and I am thinking of pinching out the tops.  They are looking extremely healthy and currently still unsupported despite being battered by the wind a few weeks ago.  Apparently they should be the "tastiest heirloom variety" so I thought I might chance my arm with an (extremely) late second sowing, hopefully to keep me in beans through to August.

Seeming almost total failure of my direct sown peas (only 1 plant has appeared in each row so far) means that I have also taken one last gasp attempt for peas this year by re-sowing, this time 3 peas to a 3" pot, in the greenhouse for transplanting if successful:

1. Sugarsnap Pea 'Sugar Ann'
2. Maincrop Pea 'Rondo'

Turning to planting now, with great excitement I began to plant out my brassicas in the new 'no dig' bed alongside the main path.  Okay, so I have already popped in a line of marigold plantlets to line this path either side, but that didn't count as really planting up the bed with veg, did it?

This 'Brassicas' bed has been divided invisibly into 4 equal sections along its length, and it is now proudly home to 8 Purple Sprouting Broccoli in the first section at the western end, followed by 6 cavolo nero in the next section moving eastwards along the bed.  As these will take a while to grow up and out, I have interplanted a row of 'leftover' Tom Thumb lettuce plants and a row of similarly 'leftover' Merveille de 4 saisons lettuces to hopefully cover the ground a little and provide July salads (as long as the stress of being abandoned for so long in their modules doesn't send them shooting straight into flower, that is).   

I had planned a grand covering of these precious brassicas with a tent of Enviromesh (which I received as a free gift from a catalogue order last year, but never used) and merrily set about hammering in stout stakes to about 4 feet high to support the mesh tent.  I hadn't measured the enviromesh first...you can see where this is going, can't you?  Hmm...long enough, but no where near wide enough to cover roof and sides... Drat and botheration!!! Am I doomed to lose my brassicas again this year to the dreaded caterpillars???

Grandma arrived to give E her piano lesson just as I was swearing heartily at my stupidity and struggling to erect emergency plan B - I used my old fleece mini tunnels to create a shorter temporary enviromesh support tent, so at least the babies are protected as best they can be whilst I ponder on a proper Plan B... All seems to be fine, until I caught Mr Darcy asleep on top of the enviromesh this evening as I came in...Grrrr.  At least he hasn't squashed any plants (yet!) but of course he had pulled out the edge of the net from its weight on the edge.  I can see that this is a very temporary option indeed and will need proper redesign!

Just a bit of fillering...?

Meanwhile, in other news, we now have 2 beautifully cut holes in the wall in E's bedroom as the Engineer's repair and prep work continues apace...we are both somewhat nervous about this particular repair as we have never done it before, but the laths are obviously broken and there is no way I could have successfully painted the loose, cracked plaster without no doubt causing total collapse.  So in we go and see how we get on!

Apologies for total lack of photos today - for some reason, the brief and frequently interrupted opportunities I have had to whizz down and do a bit of planting when all is quiet on the childcare front generally mean that I forget my phone!  I will try to take some tomorrow and upload them to this post, if I can work out how to do it xxx Done!

Empty patio pots now looking accusingly at me whenever I come in and out of the kitchen door...but it won't stop raining!

At least the front door pots got done at the weekend...still settling in though, I'm looking forward to them romping away and giving the front that sunny southern African feel!