3 June - May at last!

Yesterday I put out my runner beans and tomatoes into the garden - jobs I normally do in May.

Usually the love-in-the-mist grows like a weed in my garden, this year I had very few, and most of those were where the beans were to go, so up they came! Also very few swiss chard came up, and only one ruby chard which was on the edge of the runner bean bed. I tore off some leaves so they didn't provide a route for snails to reach the beans and hope, by keeping an eye on it, that I can keep it to goes to seed.

I haven't been able to use the metal and bean wigwams I bought as the ground was too dry. Next year I will have to try in late winter when hopefully the ground will be soft enough for me to press the centre stakes into the earth.

I used the green plastic slug collars round each of the beans. It is always a worry that I have trapped a snail, or more likely a slug inside the collar with the bean. This morning only two bean plants had nibbled leaves. One had the culprit - a snail - crawling on the slug collar!

I put some tomatillo seedlings into the seed pots the beans had come out of. And next weekend I will put out the climbing french beans.

This morning I had extra watering to do, but am looking forward to all the vegetables in a few months time!

Nigella (love-in-the-mist) seeds in bread

If I am early at Kings Cross I take a detour to St Pancras before walking to my osteopath in Caledonian Road. There is a stall which sells lovely bread. This morning I got one with potato flour which also had nigella (love-in-the-mist) seeds in it. If you can have poppy seeds in bread and cakes, why not nigella?

I usually have masses of love-in-the-mist but this year, perhaps due to the long winter, I don't have much in the garden at all, so won't have spare to try in a loaf. Not too disappointed, as I can't taste the seeds in the bread so would only be using them as seeds are good nutritionally.