Full Metal Wheelbarrow

I think it was a red admiral, but it fluttered away too quickly to really be sure.

It was horribly windy again yesterday, but the greenhouse is still intact, thankfully. Seedlings are beginning to emerge - lots of baby broccoli and cauliflowers and some sugar snap peas.

Today I planted more seeds - calendulas, coriander, thyme and bronze fennel and made some cloches from the coroplast from the dead greenhouse. I shall leave them to warm the soil for a few days and then I shall plant the survivors from the original batch of cauliflower seedlings under there. They're already bigger than last year's bug-stunted ones, so I'm hoping for an actual crop this time.

The plum trees are starting to open their blossom too - I hope it doesn't get blown away or frosted.

I had a bit of a general tidy up this afternoon - I was going to pull out the remaining rocket plants from last year, but a bumble bee pootled along and was clearly feeding from the flowers, so I'll leave them a bit longer.

There is a mouse living in my compost heap. Not a very clever one as he sat looking at me for ages when I pulled the cardboard off the top. If I were a cat or a hawk, he'd have been dinner. But I don't mind him living there, so he's a lucky mouse .

Rob went out to Ryton today, to meet one of his cycling friends and brought back some pumpkin seeds - thanks to anab1 we knew what to look for and I will be growing Small Sugar pumpkins this year, and hopefully finding out what proper pumpkin pie tastes like :-)