The new bricks arrived on Monday a week ago. The Builder moved them all around to the patio area. Then he started fiddling with them. Then he started bricking over the concrete path up the side, until he only had enough bricks left to do the patio. I came home from work the next day to find that I more or less had a patio.

He ordered more bricks.

They arrived.

He finished the path!

It all looks fantastic. We’ve left spaces between some for the bricks for putting low growing herbs, such as chamomile, in. There’s also a little, irregular bed around the edge, to prevent people accidentally stepping on the edge and turning their ankles!



Today I have planted out dwarf bean, sweet corn and black and white kidney bean seeds. I’ve also planted into pots in the propagating tent the last of my Black Valentine bean seeds that Clarissa gave me for my 50th birthday.

Plus, I have bought a replacement white grape vine, about a million times bigger than the red vine. It’s planted and I’ve mulched the bed with bark. I’ve also mulched the bed with the little lavenders and rosemary by the patio.




Today The Builder began digging the trench where the asparagus will eventually go. I intend to use it as a de facto compost heap for the next little while. When it is full, I’ll cover it with manure and soil ready for the asparagus next autumn/winter. I’m hoping to have two asparagus beds. You can’t have too much asparagus! And he's put guttering around the two greenhouses on the allotment and connected water butts. There's no water up there, really. There is a well, but I don't think it's very easy to use. If it ever rains again, we can have our own supply. And he tells me that lots more potatoes have come up. Excellent. We may yet have

something to eat later in the year!







Oh – and I’ve begun putting plastic drinks bottles in by the fruit trees and new ornamentals, to act as watering ducts. It’s been such a long time since it rained and I fear we are about to have a very dry summer. Don’t want all my new trees to die of dehydration. And it doesn’t much matter if it does rain all summer. I don’t have to fill the bottles up!