On Wednesday evening we had complete plants, by Saturday morning something had spent some time nibbling.  I noticed the strawberries looked a bit strange, all stalk and a lot less leaves.   The turnips that had signs of nibbling at one end of the row were now all nibbled.  The salsify which had seemed to be doing so well, were now little nibbled stubs.   A bit of a disappointing start of the day, annoying that the whole plot is surrounded by a wire fence and we made sure we propped up the ‘gate’.     It wasn’t slugs, everything was nibbled from the top.   Disheartened I did some early morning watering and weeding, amazing how small animals never seem to nibble the top of weeds.

Last week’s planting of french and runner beans, and the courgettes had been missed out on the nibbling and all looked like they were settling in ok.  That was enough to make me feel better and crack on with the rest of the morning.

No carrots much to see from two previous half row sowings and so a did a third and final row with the hope to see a bit more over the next weeks.   I did one last half row of beetroot, all previous ones are now showing, some better than others.   While the courgettes were still small, I did a couple of small rows of more spring onions and radishes in the raised beds.

Looking through the seed packets for anything I had yet to sow, I found some rocket seed.   I couldn’t think of a decent place to sow these and so dug a small new bit of bed and planted a row of rocket.   Time spent was minimal, which probably means weeding time will be extended over the coming months.

There is now a small patch remaining for planting, which will either have the sprouts and calabrese will be planted, or the many (many) young leeks going both on the plot and in pots at home.

The bloke on the plot next door arrived and within minutes was telling me that something had been nibbling his onions, it made me feel a bit better.   We spent a while talking about his working days, keen to tell me his agricultural background, pig training in Norfolk as a younger person, summers in Kent looking after and drying hops.    He went off to cover his onions.

I had a look in the tool chest to see what I had to cover things and found not only a load of metal hoops but also a load of green netting.   I don’t know why I had not looked in the chest before for such things.   I soon had all the seedlings and new sowings covered,  I did likewise with the strawberries.     The plot looks like it means business now, hopefully it is enough to keep things away nibbling things.