Plant Sale, Poor Service and Planting Out

The weekend was very busy with activity at the Hill - we had our Spring plant sale on Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes (the clubhouse open for beer and sandwiches both days too - hurrah!).  The idea was that if you sow a few more that you usually do, the extras could be sold with the proceeds going to allotment funds.

With this in mind, when I did my big sow-fest in April, I also went through all of the outrageously out-of-date seed packets from the seed swap, and sowed 12 types of brassicas thickly in strips of modules (8 of these germinated, 4 types were duds), and half a dozen trays of 'everything else' including herb seeds to make up mixed 'living salad' tubs.

I took those along the the sale which was well attended on both days, and couldn't resist a cherry tomato, cucumber (I must have overlooked these and haven't sown any this year) and a tray of dianthus which I plan to plant out at the front of the plot.

With so many people around I didn't get as much done as I had hoped to on the plot on Saturday just pulling this armful of rhubarb, and a meal of asparagus - not least because on a return visit to the Hill at tea time the car broke down.

Vantage Toyota World had the car in for a recall in the week and managed to release it back to me with the alternator unplugged.  The car was jump-started easily enough (thank you, nice man in Sainsbury's car park), but of course the battery was not recharging as I drove and indeed became more and more flat until an excitement-filled few minutes when the battery was so out of juice that the power steering failed as I was driving.

Ten points to the RAC who had the world's easiest car fix by plugging the alternator back in; minus several hundred points to Vantage Toyota whose slapdash actions could easily have been far more catastrophic than the cross customer with a wasted evening.

I went back on Sunday to put up the pea wigwams, plant out peas, sweetpeas and broad beans, which look fantastic - instant allotment!  However, I couldn't take photos as my phone ran out of juice.

Not a good weekend for batteries, all in all!