I'm In The Garden

Well I would be if it would just stop raining!

I did manage to get out yesterday and weed my paved area with a fab new tool I have purchased for the job.

I am still picking my tomatoes, they are so juicy and sweet and I have started to pick my sweetcorn. If you have never picked sweetcorn, popped straight into boiling water and eaten after 8 mins, then you are missing a treat. I have never tasted sweetcorn so sweet, it's marvelous, quite unlike anything you can buy in the shops and they are so easy to grow.

My butternut squashes are coming on very slowly. We just haven't had the sun and humidity this year and so they are very small. I hope they can grow and ripen off enough before the frosts. I was rather worried about them because the flowers were dropping off before the fruits had set so I decided to join the BBC Gardening message board, allotment talk, where you can ask questions about growing vegetables and people reply with answers. It's fantastic and a wonderful source of knowledge to tap into. http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/ I have sown some more cut and come again lettuce, together with spinach and pak choi. These can be picked as baby leaves if I can get to them before blumin slugs. I put down some organic slug pellets but unfortunately our cat Boots likes the taste. I heard him crunching them and tried to shoo him off but he wasn't very happy with me. It says on the packaging that they are safe for cats but I don't think they are supposed to be eaten and enjoyed!

I was rather disappointed to learn that my favourite gardener and presenter of Gardeners' World
Carol Klein was passed over in favour of Toby Buckland as the new presenter of Gardeners' World. I absolutely love Carol's passion for gardening and would have liked to have seen a woman take the leading role for a change and especially someone with all that knowledge and enthusiasm. I can't say I am a fan of Toby's, he seems a bit wet for me but I will reserve judgement until I see him in action. I just wish that every time a Golf or a Snooker tournament was on, that GW wouldn't have to take a back seat. We gardeners shouldn't have to make way for such trivia!