The pumpkins and courgettes quickly outgrew the space available at home.  Next year I will definitely invest in a greenhouse on site - although still seedlings, their prickly leaves are huge and there's just not enough space on the south facing window sills for all of them. May seemed quite mild this year, so I took a risk and planted out them along with the sweetcorn around the middle of the month.  Empty plastic water bottles cut in half made excellent cloches just in case a savage frost struck, as well as a physical barrier to the slugs and snails that were lurking around the edges of the plot waiting for fast food.

Weeds were starting to flourish at a rapid rate, so I started thinking about green manures as a possible solution for the beds that I'd dug but had no plans for.  These are rapidly growing crops that crowd out weeds, improve the soil structure through intensive root systems, and can be ploughed back into the ground before they seed to add humus. I decided upon buckwheat which attracts aphid eating hoverflies, and phacellia and crimson clover that bees go mad for.  My first bed of buckwheat was planted next to the pond, and emerged only 2 weeks later.