The asparagus has started to come up!!!! There are six spears showing above ground this morning.

Germination rates this year in the propagating tent have been spectacularly better than last year. The beans are all shooting up. The tomatoes are up (seed leaves only yet). So too are the peppers. The calabrese are ready to be planted out. Might do that this afternoon. The sweet potato slip are looking very, very sad, however. I'm not sure they're going to survive. And there's a slug making free with the propagating tent. I have Taken Steps!

Update: I've planted the calabrese (Veronica) in between the broad beans I sowed last autumn. The Builder has built a netting cage for them to prevent the pigeons pulling them out and eating them. We have also properly staked the raspberries (8 stakes along the bed, with three strands of fencing wire running around them to support the canes). I've planted the last of the broad bean seeds and another couple for rows of beetroot seeds. I've also put some sweet corn seeds into the propagating tent. And I gave up on the last lot of soya seeds, which had been on the lounge room windowsill. The seeds themselves seem to have vanished. Can't think what's happened to them! I've planted twelve seeds directly into seed pots, and put another 12 in to soak for 24 hours in an experiment to see which is better.

On the allotment, we've planted 6 rows of Pink Fir Apple potatoes, 6 of Lady Balfour and 7 of Arran Victory. I also put in another couple of rows of peas. The Builder mowed, mightily. He's also mowed back at home. Everything looks much more loved now!

We are eating rhubarb. Oh boy, are we eating rhubarb. To say the two lots on the allotment and the one lot where the chook run will eventually go at home have been neglected for years would be something of an understatement. But they are doing mighty fine on it! I might manure them this autumn and see what happens next. We are also eating sprouting broccoli. And asparagus, but not our asparagus, obviously. There are 7 shoots up now.

Memo to self: the germination rate of the spring sown broad beans and peas in astronomically better than the autumn sown ones. DO NOT DO IT AGAIN IN THE AUTUMN!!!!! (I know this really, but autumnal optimism always gets the better of me!!!)