What Not to Do - No.237 (May 5th)

- grow sunflowers from seed indoors, when they have sown themselves in the beds so generously from last year, and seem to thrive *much* better that way. Compare the long weedy individual that I grew in the lean-to, with the beefy youngsters (shorter, but much stouter) that reared themselves outdoors.

My Bijou Giant Mange Tout, getting a much better start than the Golden Sweet did, although they still struggled in the subsequent dry weeks:

Most excitingly, my blueberries have flowered and set! I bought two plants at the end of last year, knocked down to about a quid each in the local Focus store (now defunct - shame, as it was good for knock-down bargains).

Prettily-coloured pansies: mauve on the back, orange and yellow on the front. Here they're at the feet of a blueberry plant.

A hoverfly, sunbathing. Looking back as I write, in damp-mid-June, I'm nostalgic for those sunbathing days already. I hope May and April didn't constitute the entire summer.