The rain got here! the garden definitely needed it, but I am so glad I took the chance to garden yesterday. I cleared the bit around the pond, to give a bit of breathing space to the yellow flag irises I grew from seed

and the woodland bed under the birch tree, getting rid of excessive aquilegias (it would break your heart to do it, as they are so lovely, but everything else needs room too! I also planted out some sweet violets here in the hope that they will produce more of the intensely purple – almost liquid in its depth – flowers and less leaves.

I forked over the herb patch and added some more sage and thymes, some st john’s wort and some wood violets

and planted out a seedling fennel in the rose bed. I sowed three sorts of tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, carrots and beetroot, calabrese, courgettes, and rosemary seeds as an insurance, because my new bush that I planted this year looks as if it got walloped by the frost and it’s struggling some. Finally I planted five root cuttings of comfrey. I could regret this – comfrey plants spread like mint – but they are so useful for providing liquid feeds for all those tomatoes, that it’s worth it.

Oh, and I picked the first rhubarb, too.