The glorious weather on Saturday meant that not only did I get a burnt nose, but also that we managed to achieve at lot at the allotment. The Tame photographer seems to have recovered from his most recent illness and set to with vigour this weekend. Also, he has a new camera (This time a Nikon D300) so he found plenty of opportunities to use it.

First of all, a round up of progress. The potatoes are beginning to sprout:There is still no sign of the first earlies, but there are plenty of second earlies and maincrop, so I hope the first earlies will appear shortly. Maybe this hot weather will help them along. The broad beans are doing well, but something is eating them - some insect or another. The radishes will be ready to harvest before long and strawberries are in full flower:Almost all the other seeds have germinated - spinach, spinach beet, parsnips, beetroot, carrots, pak choi, lettuce and peas. We took the fleece off most of them for the day, but still covered them when we went home as they seem a bit vulnerable at the moment to attack from animals intent on digging. The peas have now got a chicken wire cage to protect from from predation by birds. Also the wallflowers are looking wonderful but will have to be dug up next weekend to make way for the brassicas.This weekend we sowed two rows of dwarf french beans and the runner beans and commenced battle with the bindweed. I was aware that mares tail was going to be a problem, and indeed so it is proving, but the bindweed took me by surprise - where did that come from? These last couple of days saw it sprouting prodigiously! It is particularly bad in the raspberry bed, but there are outcrops in the strawberries and other places as well. I will have to try a battle of attrition -just dig out as much as I can whenever it appears. I did manage to eliminate it at home that way. It is awkward when it is tangled with the roots of plants, but I will do the best I can. I managed to dig out quite a lot yesterday. Something else I did was spread coffee grounds around the lettuce plants to try and protect them from slugs - as suggested by Alys Fowler and Monty Don. Unfortunately, we don't drink a lot of coffee, so this might not be totally sucessful!I suspect we will need industrial quantities to make any difference.

This was all very hot work, so we needed copious rest and occasional 'gasoline' stops.Before going home I watered just to keep everything growing well.And just to show off the new camera, a couple of snaps - the neighbour's apple tree and a beautiful weed:
I harvested some more rhubarb this week and this time turned it into rhubarb fool.