This evening’s weather continues to wonder. It had almost a wintery hint to it, a November blur. Yesterday at the garden the beans have started to come up, but they’re not happy, they’re struggling. It’s the soil I think. I can’t quite fathom it, but i know an unhappy bean when I am looking at one. They look parched, and yet it had been raining down on them.

Last year they sprung out of the soil wide and green. This year it’s more a coughing, tickly, half cut yawn. Had a look at another gardener’s beans which are a little ahead of mine and same diagnosis.

The strawberry plants, however, look like they’ve gone on holiday to Sellafield. A kind woman gave me a new plant from a botanic (?) garden in Tofino. I have my original alpine strawberry which I grew from a seedling the size of my little finger. Now she’s a “big hair” strawberry plant. Bouffant.