The tomato plants are in — just in the nick of time according to Mme Beespeaker’s instruction on planting this weekend. Also the marigold looks distressed, but the brocolli content. The lettuces are over, except the one who remained in the Greenhouse. (do not imagine any impressive structure, glorified carrier bag)

My gardening assistant took his raking so seriously and accused me of nonchalance!

All the plots around ours are so much more advanced, I am nursing a degree of sadness over my inability to get prepped for today’s planting, but the challenges have been many including too little time, weather conditions, illness and general mayhem. But the thing with the garden is you have to put in, to pull out.  But there’s so much joy over there and I love to spend time puzzling out why nothing is growing or puzzling out why is that particular thing growing when I never put it in there … and there’s the delight in what everyone else around me manages. Philip was out today and his garden is such a delight, and it’s always so abundant. I hope his arugula plant will return this year in my plot. It’s vaguely there, but may have been raked over in today’s co-operative venture.