It might as well rain until September

So we are at mid- late May and the temperature is still in the low teens.  Even though I have done the great winter summer clothes swap over, nobody has told the weather gods and I am hankering after thick jumpers and duvet coats.

The cold weather isn't deterring my greatest garden enemies - the slugs and snails are definitely getting into swing of things. Not known to be nature's acrobats, they are reaching new heights in among my roses and eating the flower buds off my flag irises. Apparently there is a new Spanish slug invading but to be honest I'm equal opportunities in my hatred of all slugs (snails at least give you something to hold without covering your hands in slime.)  Salt is very effective to kill them (they shrivel alarmingly fast) but does leave a CSI-like outline around the desiccated corpse.

I took advantage of brief sunny spell last weekend to weed a bit and plant out (most) of the seedlings.  After planting I watered them with some of Bernie's magic water which apparently is used to help plants establish roots and has worked wonders on his crop so far.

In my rush though I forgot to cover the brassicas. I promise myself that I will do it at same time as I plant out beans and sweet peas that I forgot to plant. If I don't then the brassicas will be ripped to shreds by the pigeons and the snails/ slugs will have eaten all the bean seedlings.

I'm cold and considering yet another jumper. Will we never see the sun again?

Top tip: Don't be in hurry to clear everything away. 

I learnt this earlier on in the summer where the mangetout came back to life and it's true again this month.  

After the first broccoli (or more precisely, calabrese) harvest I made a cross cut in the stem and a few weeks after we got an extra harvest of shoots.

Meanwhile I am struggling to keep up with the runner bean glut - I have even taken to giving it away to our builders as without a kitchen I can't blanch them and the freezers are full.  A few pods (well quite a few actually) have got too big to be tasty and will have developed a tough inner skin. Rather than use them to eat when I already have so many tasty pods I have decided to let them dry on the plants and use them as seeds for next year.  Doing this will discourage the plants from flowering and creating new beans but I think I can probably cope. The books say that runner beans keep on cropping until the first frosts but I'm not sure I can cope with any more beans.  In Cornwall at the weekend I saw that someone made runner bean chutney - I suppose that's a possibility if I get desperate. And if I ever get my kitchen back again.

On the other hand it can be good to clear things away. A recent preference for fast food has slowed our salad consumption. Unfortunately this means a) that we have put on weight and I feel toxic and b) the lettuce plants have bolted. An attempt to braised them from a recipe in Nigella's 'Forever Summer' wasn't quite what I expected and they are still sitting on the plot, gradually reaching for the skies. I will clear them away when I'm not spending all my time harvesting beans and tomatoes (52 kilos so far!) though I suppose they provide a good diversion for the slugs which are sneaking around the plot eating beans and tomatoes (fill your boots guys!).  My other attempts at organic slug control was too gruesome to keep up. They recommend snipping them in half with scissors but when I tried it the poor thing oozed in a totally gross way that stopped me from ever doing it again.