Here’s my confession, I never have it together everywhere, I can do being social, having a tidy well run home, I can have a really switched on work life, I can have a tidy well run allotment, I can ace looking out for Ma. All these things are possible, they are not all possible in the same week.

Last week, the thing I had to drop was the plot. I didn’t get there on Sunday and so I started this week with no progress and a ton of plants.

However, it’s May and the lighter nights are good for allotment visits so on Monday, I took some plants round and set up a table for storage. I watered, ate some allotment strawberries and weeded some more. The worst of the grass on the main path is gone, and the garlic bed got weeeded. and some of it pulled, but I think I’ll pull it in a couple of weekends time anyway.

On Tuesday, I popped around with more plants and also planted the peppers and cucumbers in the first polytunnel bed. I’m using Strulch this year to hopefully retain water and help keep down weeds.

On Wednesday, it rained, for the first time in ages so I had a day off!

Indoors, I’ve sowed (late) some courgettes, tromboncino and, french beans. I also sowed physalis, nine star broccoli and cottagers kale – these are for the new perennial beds (the physalis might survive a winter we’ll see!). I sowed three types of basil (greek, red and lettuce leaf) and some parsley and coriander.

I have a lot of work to do, this weekend I need to get some plants in the ground and some more beds cleared. For planting, I want to get the new herb bed set up and plant fennel, lemon verbena, olive plant and maybe chamomile and thyme in there, I have some thyme in a couple of places that aren’t doing well and need to be relocated.

I really need to get the tomatoes in the ground and I have some marigolds and herbs to plant in with them. I also need to get the sweetcorn in a bed and sow black beans next to them and I really want to get beetroot and carrots sown.

I also have other plants that need homes, three new alpine strawberry plants to go in the bed next to the patio. Some more chamomile lawn and some more heath pearlwort for the patio. The erigeron arrived and needs planting, as does the geranium and the bloody grapevines, I also need to net the blackcurrants and set up the arches for the blueberries.

I also need to get the big squash bed weeded, cardboarded and covered with compost in preparation for the 12 squash plants coming in the next month (butternut – sweetmax, delicata, muscat d’provence and crown prince) they will go in that bed. Which I inend to ‘strulch’ that bed too. The other squash bed is completely weed infested, and I think my plan for this year is to chop all the grass down and cover it. Then in the winter, I’ll work on the rehab, there is a lot to do with that side of the plot so one less task would be helpful to my mental and physical heath. There is still so much weeding to do.