How to be mean to beans.

Put bean seedlings into heated propagator overnight to protect from falling temperatures.

Next day have a leaisurely breakfast, it is the weekend afterall. Visit the hairdressers, browse in the shops.

Make the most of the incredibly hot sunny weather and have a nice lunch outside in the sun.

Comment on the heat and how it is far too hot for digging on the allotment. Open the greenhouse door to ventilate it...now (and only now) take the time to remember the beans in the heated propator that is still on, despite the inside temperature of the greenhouse being 30 degrees! Aarrrghh...congratulations you now have cooked plants with very shrivelled leaves; leaves that look like they will never recover.

Feel guilty for being so forgetful and pot said beans up into nice homemade compost, water well and leave in a cool shady place in an attempt to help them recover. They will surely be thankful and you may just rescue them from the brink.

Go for a drink down at the beachside pub, the weather is so glorious it could almost be the Med! Come home,have a BBQ - the first of the year! Always a call for a celebration. Pop open a bottle of wine (or two, or maybe three!). Sit outside chatting and laughing and drinking, watching the stars in the clear sky. Comment on how it's a clear sky but it's been so warm you doubt it will be frosty... remember the greenhouse door needs closing. Comment on how cold it is now as soon as you move away from the heat of the smouldering BBQ. Now (and only now) take the time to remember that the beans you were letting recover from their extreme heat experience are still outside in this cold!

And I like to call myself a gardener?! I am hoping that the healthy root systems on my beans will be my saving grace and that they will ping out some new leaves in a few days....otherwise I may be starting my bean sowing all over again.

What's sowing and growing this week.

The speed that things are growing at the moment is proving quite a task to keep up with. I love that so much is going on in the garden but there is a small part of me that want's to slow it all down just a little bit so that I can get full enjoyment out of each new thing that has sprung up or burst into flower. Even goings-on in the greenhouse have sped up dramatically in the last few days. The investment of a heated propagator was truly worthwhile, as you can see at the front of this picture, I now have 2 cucumber seedlings and 3 courgette seedlings! Hoorah!! At last. Thank you everyone for your advice and kind words during my moments of cucurbit frustration last week! I think the cold must have had something to do with the lack of success, it would appear these babies love heat. I have only been turning the propagator on at night so as not to cook my precious seeds but so far they all seem quite happy and content.
Also springing up are the climbing beans and some more broad beans. My last sowing of broad beans only produced 4 plants but I now have another 4 peeking up through the soil. The runner beans I am planting this year are Wisley Magic and I am also growing some long purple beans call Blauhilde. I first grew these last year and they were a great success with a fantastic flavour, their purple colour also looks incredibly pretty on the plot.

The tulips have started to flower this week and the borders are looking all the better for the splashes of bright red. It's funny to think that only a month ago this border looked so dull and brown. Note to self: Hydrangea heads need cutting off.

After losing all our pelargoniums over winter we bought all new plugs a couple of weeks ago. These have been taking up alot of valuable greenhouse space and so we have planted these up this week and are hoping they will survive outside. We may have to cover them up at night if frost threatens but the weather here has been quite mild so I am hoping they will be ok.

We have bought a mixture of standard and trailing ones in scarlet and white. I think the bright red should look lovely in this old drainpipe against the white wall in summer.

A couple of weeks ago when I planted my early potatoes I removed a large clump of forget-me-nots that had seeded themselves in the middle of the plot. I bought them home and re-planted them by the shed.

I know they will cover everywhere and I will be in-undated with forget-me-nots next year (and forever more) but I love them and they cheer up what is a rather dull and practical, working area of the garden. Note to self: Shed needs painting.

On the plot the spring planted garlic and onions now have green shoots and I am pleased with their progress considering I only got around to planting them a few weeks ago. This is the first time I have tried planting garlic in spring.I have previously grown it overwinter so it will be interesting to see the results and compare with other years.

I have now planted my pak choi. I am hoping the marigolds will protect from whitefly and the netting will protect from pigeons and butterflies but I fear the biggest enemy for these will be slugs. Thankfully I don't think we have any visiting pheasants like Shiny New Allotment Holder!

Jobs for the weekend:
Plant tomatoes in greenhouse border.
Finish planting potatoes.
Deadhead hydrangeas.
Pot up climbing bean seedlings.
Sow chard seeds.