It’s National Biscuit Day and I missed. Fortunately I was able to get into the spirit of things because we bought biscuits for a meeting scheduled for 11am. At 10.10 they rang to cancel. It’s an ill wind that blows no good…

I know farmers need rain (or so they always tell us until they start telling us the rain will ruin them), but I really could have done without the rain today. We’re on clay (you may have heard me mention it a time or two) so it meant I couldn’t get on the newly cleared beds.

We could still get into the herbs and Julia has been potting some of the bigger ones for the plant stall on the 7th June. I’ve been on the raised beds near the kitchen and made a couple of runner bean wigwams. One will have the roots we’ve overwintered for the last two years, and the other will have some new ones from this year. Looking at the luxuriant growth of the old ones (already in flower despite being kept in a bucket in the polytunnel till now) and comparing it with the stringy new growth it doesn’t look much of a contest. We will have to see – when you talk to people about it the majority seem to think you are better using new plants every year. I will keep scrupulous records of cropping dates, numbers and weights and see what it tells us.

It will probably tell you that after the first week the reporting system fails. When you add my lack of paperwork skills to the effect of random harvesting by passers-by it’s almost a certainty!