The gloves are off

It's some time since the word "marigold" has been seen on this blog, but the gloves are now off, and marigolds are back on the agenda. Like many of my fellow allotmenteers, I am running well behind plan this year, and in an effort to bring the plot back onto its schedule I recently bought a tray of marigolds, 4 of which I planted under the thornless blackberry on Plot B. Next day, 3 were looking fine and dandy, but one had been shredded, and yesterday another. It can only be pigeons: no slug would be so systematic, so the defenses have gone up. Thank goodness for Poundshop netting; I hope.

Turning to other matters, yesterday I received 2 more, very generous, presents from another plot-holder: a large and very happy cucumber, accompanied by 3  sticks of rhubarb (readers will recall that my own was only planted this year, and all the advice is against consuming any in Year One).


Meanwhile, my own cucumbers have now reached the dizzy height of 1cm, but then they were only planted a week or so ago, so there's hope

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