Seedling Explosion!

It has been an amazing Summer's day today - blue skies, sunshine and balmy double-digit temperatures.  I spent a very pleasant ten minutes pottering around the garden this morning before I went to work, checking my plants, watering those that needed to be watered and opening the cold-frame for the day.  On my way into work the May-blossom, which has only just opened fully, was filling the morning air with its syrupy-sweet smell.  It was a wonderful start to the day.

This evening I snuck a bit more garden-time - I had seedlings to deal with.  In this tray we have geraniums, basil, nicotiana and verbena - as you can see, I sowed one or two too many, especially the nicotiana.

I hate killing growing plants with a passion, but on the grounds that they'd probably all die if I didn't take action, I sat myself down in a sunny spot on the lawn while waiting for my tea to cook - supervised by Pastry - selected the two biggest and strongest-looking seedlings in each pot and plucked out the rest.

This is how the nicotiana ended up. 

If these seedlings die, I shall not be best pleased! 

The geraniums are looking fantastic - ready to pot on at the weekend I think.

Rather less pleasingly, tonight's inspection of my courgettes revealed that two of them have broken stems and are looking a bit floppy and sorry for themselves.  I suspect slugs - the copper bands were successful in keeping the beasties off when they were in pots but the war continues now!  I shall report from the trenches with more news anon.