We managed at the weekend to dodge the rain, in the end, to get out into the garden and to plant out 12 Brussels sprouts plants, 12 sprouting broccoli plants and 4 cauliflower plants in bed #4.  The Undergardener has made a frame with a fine net over it to protect the plants from the pigeons and from the butterflies and catterpillars.  So far they seem to be doing OK.  There are loads more brassica plants to plant out and the Undergardener has bought more wood and netting to make new frames.  Alas - everytime he goes out to try to assemble the frames, the rain comes back and he has to beat a hasty retreat inside!

We also managed to get up to the allotment and planted in the greenhouses some more tomato plants and some melon and a watermelon and a pumpkin plant. So far they seem to be doing OK.  The cucumber plants that we put in a few weeks ago now have tiny, tiny cucumbers on them.  I hope they will grow into full-sized cucumbers :-)  There were some left over melon, watermelon and pumpkin plants which wouldn't fit in the greenhouses, so I've planted them in the garden beds with the other cucurbits in bed #3.  Plus two sweet melon plants in with the sweet corn in bed #1. 

There are also some tomato plants left over but I'm not sure what to do with them. The continual rain coupled with a fair degree of humidity means the conditions for blight are absolutely ideal.  The tumbling tomatoes have already been afflicted and have had to be thrown away.  The first early potatoes are struggling with wireworm but also, we think, possibly with blight. It seems inevitable that if I put the tomato plants in the garden, they will succumb too.    The potatoes and tomatoes on the allotment so far seem unaffected. But there's no more room for tomatoes on the allotment. I am tempted to put them in pots and have them on the driveway and see what happens - but first we need to get more potting mix.

I am happy to report, however, that it's not just us that are having a funny year.  Colleagues at work and on various blogs are also reporting that their seeds didn't germinate, or they did but the seedlings died, or that the seedlings survived and then just died or failed to thrive once they'd been planted out.  Apart from rhubarb (which is absolutely relishing the non-stop rain) and the gooseberries (one of the new plants on the allotment yielded 1.3kg of gooseberries at the weekend and there are more to come from the other allotment plant and the established plants in the garden) - apart from them, nothing is very much enjoying the weather.

Even the chickens aren't thriving.  Egg production has dropped to one every two or three days at most.  This is probably partly because the chooks are now 2 years old and hybrids aren't designed to lay much beyond that. Partly it's because one of them is moulting.  One of them hasn't laid anyway for 12 months.  And the one who is moulting looked for all the world as though she was going to decide to lie down and die on Sunday.  She didn't - but I'm sure she was contemplating it!!

Oh well.  Maybe we'll do OK for winter cabbages .  And the peas and broad beans, although not flourishing, at least are imminently about to produce peas and broad beans!