Oh dear. It’s happened again.
I haven’t made it down to the allotment for a few weeks and the nettles have gone completely feral.
A metre-high patch around the compost bins has engulfed the rhubarb and spread along the rear path to smother the western-most bed - where later, with burning arms and wondering (once again) how the hell weeds evolved to sting through jeans, I uncover two flourishing (!) rows of broad beans which Lynne planted out last month.

Each plant is somewhere between five inches to a foot tall, and one is proudly sporting a ladybird - enough reason in my book for a celebratory snooze in the deckchair...

Just as time waits for no man, Mother Nature doesn’t appear to give a damn how busy a girl is away from the good life, and I realise (for the second year running), that somehow spring has crept rampantly up on our fledgling plot.

Looking around neighbouring gardens at the neat rows of short fat bean stalks, cabbages, onions and greenhouses stuffed with young tomato plants, I can’t help but feel a bit guilty about having been so neglectful at such a crucial time of year.
But, as my plotmates and I keep boasting, we’re SO much further on than last year, when the nettles had reached a monstrous seven metres high and covered almost the entire plot.
It’s taken us two years of backbreaking digging and forking to all but eradicate ‘that evil ground elder’ from the southerly four beds, which had lain fallow collecting bricks and other debris, for the best part of a decade before we arrived.
On the opposite beds, our makeshift cover of black plastic binbags, old carpet and paving slabs has somehow worked to block the light and keeping the worst of the nettles in check.
Now, thanks to an unseasonably warm April followed by May’s healthy dose of showers, the young beetroot, potatoes and spring onions planted out in March are coming on nicely.
The radishes, however, are not doing so well:

I’m not sure who the culprit is, but I suspect it could have been one of these:

Granddad (Joe - more on him in later blogs) has a theory that it’s some variety of worm which has been munching on our precious salad crop.
But nestled inside one of the scarily large 'bite marks' I spot two tiny centipede-like grubs (to which Grandad harrumphs and, confusingly as ever, says: “Yes, a worm.”).
If anyone has suggestions or ideas for solutions, feel free to get in touch...

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