Bring on the watering cans!

At last it's time to plant out the tomatoes and courgettes.
However, some of the ground is so hard and dry that it needs watering before any planting holes can be dug!

Tomatoes need a lot of water after planting too.

We bought new hazel rods this year to make the bean wigwams.

Wigwam under construction

Here's one we made earlier

In our fruit area, the thornless loganberry is doing quite well. We have fixed some wires onto the wall behind it so that we can fasten it back tidily.

The loganberry needs support

We have a fine show of californian poppies at the moment. They don't mind the dry conditions at all.

Californian poppies with phacelia behind to set them off

Preparing for peas & beans

A heavy shower of rain passed before we were able to start gardening in earnest this evening.

Here's the Annecy Garden, the rain has just passed

The mangetout peas that we sowed a couple of weeks have germinated nicely.

With the eye of faith, you can see a row of mangetout peas here, just germinated

In order to provide the peas with a support, we've given them some hazel twigs; hopefully the presence of the twigs might help to deter the voracious local pigeons.

Putting in pea sticks for the mangetout; we've saved these hazel twigs from last year, they're now a bit brittle, but hopefully will prove sufficient support for the pea vines

The field beans, sown in the autumn to make a green manure, are now coming into full flower & therefore this is the point where they are best incorporated into the soil.

Cutting down the field beans

We didn't dig the field bean tops into the soil, just planted seed potatoes amongst the cut down bean plants

Planting seed potatoes (variety: Anya) among the cut down field beans

We're also preparing for planting runner beans & climbing french beans. Once again, we were able to reuse the hazel rods from last year. It's nice to use local hazel, rather than bamboo canes imported from the Far East. The hazel was provided by Graham Saunders of Cotswold Woodland Crafts.

Creating wigwams for our climbing beans

All ready for beans

The seeds we've sown have been germinating nicely

The red & green lettuces have germinated well but are being overgrown by self-sown  mustard 'Red Frills' (with the feathery leaves)