Just in time for the long Bank Holiday weekend

I'm laid low by my second respiratory infection in 7 months. Am very put out by this. Fair enough, many people I know have got it too -- there's a mean bug going around -- and I've timed the inevitable disruptive, no-more-speaking, no-more-sleeping cough so well that it probably won't affect work and will have cleared by next Wednesday when we all go back.

But my energy levels are non-existent today, after the third sleep-disordered night. Nevertheless, we need to go to the plot today to plant out more of our seedlings and also to deal with our flea beetle infestation.

Because illness and bugs are everywhere right now -- our brassicas are being punched and munched by these little things -- our Portuguese plot neighbour has nearly lost all his brassicas to them. I read up on them -- if seedlings are heat-stressed, and ours would have been last week, despite once-daily generous watering, then the bugs strike more easily. OH has ordered some flea beetle strips off the internet, which arrived this morning, and these will be deployed later on today.

 I also read that home-made garlic or onion sprays apparently help so I will try and boil up a concoction of that. It will be quite a sight -- I'm also using onion juice to medicate my cough so OH will be treated to the incongruous sight of my alternatively spraying the brassicas and using the sprayer as an inhaler.

Today is meant to be the only reasonably nice day of the weekend -- we're predicted another washout -- so we'd better get a move on.

Plan for this weekend:

* plant out more seedlings (tomatoes, onions, rest of the brassicas, peas, radicchio, chard, perpetual spinach, possibly also sweetcorn and squashes)


* prep the other 3 beds

* remember to bring that sack of manure, to use with the pumpkins and squashes

* deal with the flea beetles

* pot up some of the seedlings from the flower bed that have sprouted -- not many, it should be said -- that flower bed was pointless really... would have been better off just buying unloved seconds from B&Q... plus the stray lupin seedlings from around the existing lupins

* keep harvesting and freezing parsley before it bolts

* stake runner beans and make bamboo teepees

* remember to bring treats for superaffectionate allotment kittie (blurred pic because she never stands still):

* at home: tie up the clematis, water the strawberries, pot up flower seedlings, keep working on the bed in front of the raspberries, de-nail P's old floorboards and tidy-saw the ends, then move to the plot on the handcart, to make raised beds and frames.

* foraging: the elderflowers are finally out! If we're up to it, we'll gather them and make elderflower champagne.

* homebrewing (ongoing): OH will bottle his Beech Leaf Noyau today -- exciting!