A mid week visit on the way home from work, it was sunny and warm during the day but by the time work had finished it had clouded over and was cold. I pulled up the spent purple sprouting plants which had done really well, so well that they had overshadowed the broad beans all this time. The beans have not thrived, these are the second sowing after the lot got killed by frost. I’ll get something off them I’m sure, but we’ve had a lot better in pervious years.

Now that the purple sprouting has gone, later on in the week I’ll put out the pea plants, once I’ve weeded and prepped the ground

The plan for later on in the week to plant the peas out did not quite work out. On Sunday morning I was met by evidence of squirrels during the night in the garden, mostly digging up the peas. What made it worse was they had snapped right though a lot of pea plants almost wiping out the second bed, so I wasn’t able to replant them. The pea plants destined for the plot were then used to replace the broken ones in the garden.

Reading up on squirrels, it seems there is not much you can do to stop them, apart from maybe having a cat that does more than just sleep all the day. I have put netting around the base and actually next year I think it will be better if I plant them out in-between two rows of the metal grids that I have, almost a “pea cage”. It is suggested squirrels don’t like coffee (maybe they before a cup of tea) and they don’t like chilies so I have started to put down some coffee grounds and also sprayed the young pea plants with chili water.

I’m hoping the squirrels don’t spot the new strawberry planters I setup to house some of the spare strawberries from the plot.

I kept the rest of the pea plants that were going to go to the plot, at home just in case I need to replace any more. Meanwhile, on the plot I prepped the ground where the purple sprouting had been and planted two rows of peas. It had been a hot and sunny weekend (hottest of the year so far, 24c and higher) and so we took a picnic to the plot and spent a morning/lunch time there. I weeded the onions and generally tidied bits up.

Pleased to see the carrots I sowed last month are all starting to come up, and the parsnip seedlings are all still there and growing well.