Profile pic is a crab apple called "Gorgeous".

Fruit of the HAWthorn

Pea and bean poor germination in rootrainers seems to be down to moisture content or vermin. Having said that I can't get sensible germination of borlotto beans however much care I take.

Plenty of time to try again. With carrots in particular no-show can in fact be slugs browsing them off as soon as they come through. If the ground is a bit wet fill the drills with a 50:50 mixture of sand and leafmould instead of the soil.

Lovely day here too, first choc ice of the season with afternoon brew.

Well there's a surprise! Checked my year to date figures 2015 to 2024 and this year the first four months have registered the highest rainfall and the lowest solar generation.

Two swallows flew out of my garage this morning, strange I hadn't seen them inspecting it yesterday. There is alternative access for them when the main door is closed.

I've got two Karcher hoses that I quite like though the one that is in the polytunnel is starting to harden a bit (bought 2016) but the one outside (bought 2021) that doesn't get high temperatures is fine, no splitting on either.

Definitely wasn't far off last night - minus 1.1 but up to plus 0.6 now. I think everything was covered apart from a few lettuce where the cloche blew away last week. Wife won't be happy about her beautiful rockery rhododendron though.

Absolute nonsense - used in antiquity to lay waste to enemies' land after you've finished with the rape and pillage.

Perhaps I should have checked the forecast better before I planted out the broad beans and sweet peas this weekend, being throwing hailstones at them this morning much going past horizontally.

That looks good, do you know the name?

Bit of a surprise that I could achieve this after the weather we have had. This is my '3 legumes' bed, broad beans down the middle and sweet peas and runner beans each side. The broad beans will be ready to go out after a couple more days in the cold frame.

Mealy Bug?

Scotland is able to have better public services because the Barnett Formula that calculates the devolution grants is too generous so I am subsidising free further education in Scotland for example. I don't understand the pressure for independence as they would lose all this English money.