Cauli wobbles and sparsley parsley

It has been a strange season thus far. Whilst I'm happy that the majority of my stuff is looking good I have had some issues, the main problem being that I am really struggling to get some seeds germinated. I've now had 4 attempts at getting some parsley on the go. I put it down to old seed and having purchased some new last weekend I now have the first seedlings popping up at long last. Parsley is important for garnishing Leesa's trugs as she pokes it into the gaps between each veg so that the judges cannot see the scrunched up bits of newspaper, old bras, suspender elastic and broken dildos that she uses to prop up the veg on show.

I learned a while ago that lettuce will simply not germinate in temperatures much above 25 degrees so I generally have pots of seeds in a shady corner outside. I can only assume the recent heatwave was a factor but I've had three attempts at germinating some and still no success, despite using fresh seed.

But most disappointing of all are failures to get some cauliflour seed to pop up. I sowed a first batch of 'Boris' 3 weeks ago when it was really hot, and another batch a week ago. There is nothing so far from the first sowing but the second batch is now starting to come through but does seem very patchy and the seedlings don't look that strong. I was hoping to grow quite a large patch of caulis this season with a view to trying to get some staged at Malvern but it looks like that plan will have to be shelved. It's a bit late to be sowing fresh seed now so I'll have to run with what few plants I can muster up. I may buy a few in from a local garden centre.

In the past I've suffered from my caulis suddenly collapsing a few days after planting out. As far as I can tell I don't have a club root problem on my land so on closer inspection I discovered lots of tiny grubs eating the roots which I assume were those of cabbage root fly. However, I never seem to have this problem with my cabbages so that has always confused me. Thankfully though, problems with cabbage white butterflies are now a thing of the past as I use something called Decis on the leaves of all my brassicas (and celery to ward off leaf miner). Two or three sprayings a season are enough and the cabbage whites simply avoid the leaves and don't lay their eggs.

Apparently Decis is a highly toxic substance (as are the phorate granules I used against carrot fly) and according to Greenpeace you need to don full body armour, preferably an XC55 (Mark IV) Turbo Charged Patented Spunkmaster Sprayer with integrated cock wipe attachment and apply a minimum of 6 million miles away from any other human being, and you need to go to horticultural college for the duration of 3 lifetimes to acquire the necessary certification to be able to use it. I prefer to spray on sunny days in a T-shirt and shorts with my bollocks hanging out but I do take the rather unusual and perhaps radical precaution which I'm sure many of the organic grass chewers might find a little hard to accept....OF POINTING IT DOWNWARDS AT THE GREEN THINGS AND NOT SPRAYING IT IN MY FUCKING FACE!