It's raining

Today it's raining. I expect most of you are groaning at that. Not me. The garden is really dry, and appreciates the good, long, refreshing drink it's receiving. Much better than me taking cans of water from the water butt and allocating water to each plant individually, or, horror of horrors, using the hose pipe, which I have resorted to on a few days, when it's been really dry and sunny.

This way there's a good reservoir of water building up underneath all my thirsty vegetable plants, that they can tap into when their roots get far enough down. There are 23 runner bean plants now, in two beds, preparing to twine up the arches, which are waiting above them. With so many plants thriving - and I have to say, there is very little evidence of slug damage, probably due to the fact that these are the new beds that David built for me, and all the soil is sieved and mixed with my own produced compost - I'll be able to pick the beans when they're very young, which will be a real treat. Normally I'm left with only a handful of plants once the pests have feasted on their organic treats. I can quite understand why they prefer my vegetables - I'm sure they must be as health conscious as the rest of us!

The broad bean seedlings are now a couple of inches high, and I'm looking forward to their lovely, furry pods of beans. If I'm lucky, I might get to freeze some, you never know.

The baby turnips, Snowball, I think they are, form a green mat at one end of a bed. I transplanted a dozen or so, to thin them out, and the next day they looked terrible, wilted and browning, despite my watering them. However, yesterday, they had perked up, recoverd beautifully, and their siblings have more room to grow in the original site. Yippee!

The Jerusalem artichokes are growing again, and some potatoes I failed to spot last year when harvesting are shooting up. Food for free, so to speak. I remember when I was very young, Mum would cut sprouting eyes from potatoes, and plant them in the ground. She epxlained that during the war, that's what people did to save money and resources. I found it amazing then, and still do today. It really is free food - and organic too - brilliant.

So, it's raining, and I'm pleased. Maybe you'll be less bothered by it now, too.