Despite the glorious weather, I’m still trying to summon my energy for the work, I’m feeling listless and uninspired. With the bank holiday and extra days off, in addition to being home all the time, I’ve completely lost track of what day it is too…

I was given some tiny lettuces which I planted up in a bed and also sowed some radishes and salad leaves, and some flowers for the pond area, they look pretty and are perennials so all good.

I’ve planted them quite close because I don’t expect all of them to make it and I’ve also bought a eryngium to go in that area too. My eventual plant is to move the bleeding hearts and the anemone and snake’s head fritillary bulbs to that area as well.

I’ve sowed some flowers to go in all the designated flower areas of the plot. Dahlia (piccolo mixed), pansies (clear crystal mixed), poppies (iceland mixed), sunflowers (russian giant), forget-me-nots (indigo), alyssum (carpet of snow), chrysanthemum (white breeze) and shasta daisies (alaska).

The sunflowers were free seeds and I’m really planting them for the birds but everything else was from Wilko in the half price seed sale, I’m hopeful that some of them will live and as the majority of them are perennial, I won’t have to think too much about flowers every year. I already have the verbenas and roses and rudbeckia, so if some of these take in either the pond area or the flower beds that will make me happy!

I’ve also ordered another 1,600 litres of compost for the new beds, there is a lead time of approximately eight weeks, so the squash may be going in later than planned but as I haven’t even got around to sowing them (it’s a task for today) I’m not so worried about that. I have managed to sow tomatoes, so that’s something. Squash and leeks are the only other thing that I will start indoors everything else I’ll sow direct!

My new blueberries arrived last week but I can’t get any ericaceous compost, so they are currently still in their pots at the plot. I need to think about how to acidify the compost I do have and get them planted. For those of you keeping count that’s eight in total, I’m going for double figures and remember these are little plants so they’ll take a while to produce loads of fruit (which is what I’m aiming for!)

The apple tree is in blossom and it’s looks amazing, we also know what type of apple it is, Beauty of Bath, which is an early dessert apple, it apparently usually fruits in early August but the apples don’t store all that well. The plum goes really early too so it’s obviously a theme for the fruit trees on my plot.

Isn’t it pretty?