After I waved the boys off this morning (“have fun storming the castle!”) I turned my attention to the garden, specifially my vegetable plot.
I’ve been nursing some seedlings along for the past wee while. Sadly I lost the cucumbers (apparently they REALLY mean it when they say cucumbers don’t like to be transplanted) and have already put out some of the lettuce and mesculun (salad mix). My zucchini/courgettes though, were calling to me. Some of them were starting to fade in their little plastic pots and, since the weather here is turning warmer, I decided it was time to transplant a few.
I built a trellis out of electrical conduit and trellis netting, pounded some rebar into the ground and slid the trellis on top. (I have it on good authority that this will do the job. I’m skeptical and will be ready with the guy wires assuming my vines ever grow up the thing).
I then fetched my beloved, long-nursed zucchini seedlings out in to the garden. I gently up-ended the pot and eased them out….and promptly snapped the stems on three of them. I had actually started a lot more plants than I thought I would need, thinking I could share some with the neighbours, but it looks like the neighbours will have to fend for themselves, because, as I put the plants in the ground I managed to snap the stem on one more. Of the six plants I handled this morning, two are now in the ground and still attached to their roots. 
(I put the others in the ground anyway, and covered them with dirt, just in case they felt like growing new roots along their stems, but I’m not optimistic.) I still have one back-up plant hiding out here with me in the office, so if tragedy befalls the two that made it, all is not lost. Yet.
After that, and a bit of general weeding, I made some wire cages for the seedlings, put a shade cloth on the trellis since the sun decided to make an unscheduled appearance, elected to wait until later to put out the pepper and (more) salad seedlings, tidied up, swept the deck and decided to take a well-earned sit down in the still morning-shady corner of said deck.
At which exact moment a squad of workies pulled up across the street and started to do this.
At the risk of sounding like my mother…oh, too late.
Well, I don’t know your mother but I really don’t think you’ve turned into her. I think you’ve actually turned into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
You both make it sound as if it would be a VERY bad thing to turn into ME !!
No, no, it’s just that I did that little growl thing you do when someone invades your personal airspace with their noises!
You mean …. grrrrmmm?
Ooh – I know that noise! Sounds like the one I make when our neighbours’ dog starts barking…
you just need to add an “O” to the end of that sound and you have a real identifier.
Really well done – as a really rubbish allotmenteer I know how fraught it can be to nurture the seedlings, put them out into the big wide world and see them do absolutely nothing at all. I am really impressed with the range of stuff you’re growing! I’ll be looking for tips from you for next year!