Cheers mate

Had a visit to my garden tonight from dahlia growing 'royalty' in the guise of Kev Broxholme who kindly bought me some dahlia plants of Kenora Sunset and Jomanda as I had failed to get any of mine to shoot. One reason could be that I had 'blind' tubers which can occur when you've taken too much of the parent tuber when taking the cuttings last year. I think a more likely scenario was that I left my tubers in the cold greenhouse too late in the year and they just rotted. I shall be planting these gratefully received donations to the Smithyveg cause this weekend.

I have managed to root some 'poms' (again from tubers Kev gave me last autumn) but these won't be ready to plant for another fortnight or so. So all in all I won't have an awful lot of plants but as long as I have the odd vase for Sutton Bonington, Seagrave and Sturton I'll be happy.

I've just got in from the garden where it has only just got dark at 10pm......I love these long days when you can really get some jobs done. Tonight I've pricked out some trays of bedding plants for the flower borders. This weekend I'll need to finish off all my other flower planting which will just leave the odd marrow and french beans to plant in the next couple of weeks. I shall be sowing my first cucumbers this weekend.

Kev remarked at how small my tomato plants were but to me they looked fine because I time all my veg to come good during a very small 'window' from late August to early October. This means we have an absolute glut of veg and a only a small percentage of it will end up on our table. A big freezer comes into play then, but we inevitably have to give (or throw) an awful lot away. The madness of the show grower eh?