Deflowering my onions

(Photo is a Green Rose Chafer beetle on a broad bean leaf)

Not a euphemism - I spent a couple of hours at the plot this morning, handweeding the strawberries to get the couch grass and marestail I can't get at with the hoe, scraping the blackfly off the broad beans, and snapping flower spikes from the red onions and shallots.

Matt was over at the allotment on Friday so these have literally popped up in the last couple of days in response to all that rain after the long dry spell.

I also had a tentative poke around in the 'new' raised bed area we were offered. The previous tenant had an interesting approach to growing - they're less raised beds and more patches of weedproof membrane sunk into the ground and backfilled. Left to their own devices they've filled up with couch grass, dock, nettles, and have obviously had oddments such as bricks and old gateposts chucked in for convenience (or the previous plotholder was trying to grow a house). Either way, it's going to need attacking with a spade - even a fairly genteel poke around resulted in this:

Never mind - the main plot is ticking along nicely and the cold frame is doing a grand job as a nursery - courgettes and the first peas and sweetcorn have been planted out now, and the first two rows of carrots sown between rows of marigolds (to thwart the carrot fly), and the next lots of peas and sweetcorn are coming along.

Spaghetti squash and 'Marmande' tomatoes repotted today

Gem squash, 'Marketmore' cucumbers and cucamelons coming along nicely and repotted where necessary

Peas, sweetcorn and purple sprouting broccoli