Actually it’s more like some of the tomatoes are in the ground. Last week, London got up to 27C and while some of the tomatoes did well, some didn’t. It could be that they didn’t have enough water or that they were too wet. The peat free compost from Wickes, gets really dry on top but under that is really soggy, it could just be that they were too small and didn’t have a good enough root system.

So on Saturday, we chose the ones that were going out and we’ll leave the rest on life support for a bit longer, last week we (ok I) succumbed to the Grow Your Own offer and bought some Sungold Cherry tomatoes, so we’re waiting on those.

The big bed got 15 plants, all Feo de Rio Gordo (eight) and Amish Paste (seven). All the Gardener’s Sweetheart (six) went in but only one of the Yellow Millefleur looked good enough. The three Orange Queen plants might make it and there are four Black Russian plants that need a bit of time but are looking really heathy, so they are going to spend some time in the poly this week, with the four Peche Vilmorin plants. All six of the Tigerella plants are in the ground and look well. The biggest failure were the Ethel Watkins Best, they are looking really weedy (and didn’t do well last year!) so we’ll see. I have 25 plants in the poly, 12 Sungolds on order and 19 spaces in the beds, so I’m going to be ok!

We had a bit of a compost assessment after we topped up all the potatoes, I’m going to order another 12 bags, that will deal with the four summer squash beds, the cucumber bed, the winter squash beds and the two beds at the back of the pot (where the chard and the turnips were) and then we have to be done because I’m so over wheelbarrowing it to the plot!

Other than my tomato babies, we sowed the dwarf french beans (Aida Gold and Purple Queen) and drying beans (Jacobs Cattle Gold).

We also did a bit of weeding around the gooseberries, removing some cornflowers and bindweed. We also covered the blackcurrant bush, to protect them from the birds, I would like more than 12 blackcurrants this year.

Then we put together another arch. I know they don’t look perfect but they are what we can afford. One more to go and then we’ll sow climbing beans up them. Giantes and some climbing french beans. Hopefully after the next Bank Holiday, we’ll have both squash beds planted up. Ma did ask if I was also going to sow sweetcorn for a “three indian” bed but I’m not sure that the longer, thinner beds will work as well for a three sisters bed, but you never know, I may change my mind when we move the squash into them.