Having a rare and much indulged in Break from family life with one of my oldest friends 40th birthday bash in Brighton I sat down with the newspaper at breakfast (having slept until 9.30!)  and with the largest pyramid of Full English I could get on my tiny plate. 

The  independent declared that the deluge we've been having recently is the right type of rain but in the wrong month!! If anything the drought has got worse. 

It's complicated, (actually it's not that complicated). The rivers are full, the plants are growing but due to the hard compacted soil, a result of two long dry winters and hot summers, the waters not going down deep so the aquifers are not filling, so we have parts of England flooding but are still in a drought. 

Anyway the long and the short of it is, I've  changed my mind (I'm allowed to!) and am going to do some planting in the garden after all.  I'll be leaving the actual design of the garden till later, but with all this open ground, good soil and hands aching to get dirty, I'll be planting some veggies. 

I've got this beautiful soil thanks to the previous owners love of veg, so I think I'll continue his legacy until I've worked out a design. I've already got my four potato bags, which I love.  It makes growing potatoes even easier, and there is no problem with contamination of potato scab, which I've had in the past when growing in the ground. (If you get potato scab it is best not to plant potatoes in that soil for a few years and to rotate with grains or other non hosts). Using scab resistant varieties also helps.

• first earlies; Casablanca
• Second earlies; Anya
• early mains; Mayan Gold
• mains; Inca Belle

Anya Potatoes 

As they grow I'll be topping up the soil in the bags until it reaches the top. This acts just like earthing them up in the ground.

I like my potatoes with the nutty tastes of the Mexican tuber, I grew Mayan Gold last year and loved it.  Casablanca is a apparently a good boiler so we will do the taste test when they pop up.

I've already sown some Tomato Principe Borghese; small plum tomatoes, Lottie eats these by the squishy handful, and they have started to sprout.

So here's what else is going to be on the menu.

sown directly in the ground

I've not chosen a salad mix as being the fussy salad eater that I am I don't like some of the lettuces in the mixes so I've picked out some of the ones that I like and will do battle against the evil slugs and snails

• Lettuce Cos Dazzle 
• Spinach Bordeaux 
• Lettuce Lollo Rossa
• Pak choi a free sample from the RHS

In containers

• Carrot Parmex bright orange short stubby carrots. Just right for containers or window boxes if you don't have a garden.
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• Spring onions Apache have a beautiful deep purple colour to make salads really pretty   

To be potted on

• Stringless runner beans - I grew these last year so have lost the packet and can't  remember the name of these. I remember that they have to be picked quickly or they get quite tough.
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• Dwarf bush bean Purple Teepee beautiful purple French Beans, I've grown these for a few years now and though they are beautiful when raw, they rather disappointingly lose their colour when cooked, they go to a regular green (the packet says emerald green, but it's not purple is it!)
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• French Bean  Lazy Housewife, my mom gave these to me a couple of years ago, and being the lazy house wife have only just got around to planting them!

To make sure that they appear on my menu and not the slugs menu a lovely vet I know who lives in the wilds of Devon has just offered me some sheeps wool to keep slugs at bay,  this is the same font of all knowledge who told me to try tumble dryer fluff to deter the pesky devils.  With these two suggestions I will set up a garden experiment to see which works the best.  The other trials will be:

• porridge oats (the slugs apparently love to eat this and ten explode as it swells in their little tummies). 
• Sharp gravel (hurts their little foot apparently)
• I'd do egg shells but I think you need a hell of a lot and I don't eat that many eggs
• Then the regular organic slug pellets

The elusive artist in resident know as Wood Mouse.

To encourage wild critters who would feast on the slimy ones we are going to set up a little dipping pond for frogs, we've already found a few in the garden, but the more the merrier.  Keep some big stones/rocks for any birdies to smash snail shells.  And of a course do my darnedest to not disturb any more wood mice. I've found evidence of wood mice in other parts of the garden, hazel nut shells with perfectly round holes nibbled out.

It was all I could do to stop Holly kissing him.

Our resident frogs.

I'll keep you posted on how everything is growing, or not growing (I'm not as experienced as mr Titmarsh and we have a lot of wood pigeons).  So I'd better stop writing, don my wellies and go get my hands dirty!

(hand moisturizer trials will be later in the season.)