Disappointment to elation

Some of the garlic plants got lightly damaged by MJC's strimming the other night so to satisfy my overwhelming curiosity at whether they were ready yet, I dug a couple of them up..... Oh! Initial negative thoughts were " it hasn't worked" and "all that money for nothing!" (Note: Decided this year to get cloves from the Garlic Farm as last year's supermarket ones went mouldy due to all the rain).

However when I decided to dig up just one more to check (from the other side of the bed, different variety) I got this little beauty...obviously the one on the left, but the other one was very tasty in the salsa verde we made to accompany the fish for dinner.

Now I'm going to be patient and wait just a wee bit longer to harvest all the other 89 and even if I only get a couple more like the one on the left I'll be a happy girl indeed.

Casualties

So far this year I've had a few undocumented casualties and thought I'd best come clean about my not 100% successful record.

Some have been mysterious failures - a few squash, bean, sweetcorn, pea and cucumber seeds failing to germinate. Then there's been the unlucky, such as the other cucumber, a few tomatoes and all the kohl rabi seedlings caught out by damping off (even though I was very careful about not overwatering). Others have been due to my laziness/late timing, the poor beetroot seedlings grew as much as they could in their tiny pots....

And then there's the massacre of the slug army....grr! Checked on the plots at the weekend and realised that out of the 36 celeriac seedlings we planted out only 7 remain intact. Plus they've had a right go at the promising carrot seedlings. So out came the slug pellets and liberally dowsed all small defenceless seedlings.