Seedlings up and worms out

The same worm is STILL trying to escape the executive wormery. I've decided to send him for counselling as he clearly has attachment issues to his previous home. So the wormery is still being put to bed every night in a complicated configuration of bin bags and will continue to be so until said worm STAYS PUT. (Are you listening, worm? 'No I ain't,' says worm. 'And if I had hands, my fingers would be in my ears but as it is I am tra-la-la-la-la-ing very LOUDLY!')

Since becoming a worm owner, I have found I am more sensitive to the worms I see whilst out and about. Now I find I can't pass by a worm that has become stranded on a path without picking it up and returning it to the nearest grass or hedgerow. This can cause social issues if a worm is found, for example, in the middle of the High Street, outside WHSmiths. What do you do with the worm until you can find a suitable release point. Pop it in your pocket? Carry a designated worm transport facility (e.g a matchbox) around. Pop it on your shoulder, parrot-like and hope no-one notices there's a worm perched on your overcoat? Whatever you do choose to do, DO NOT carry it in your hand. You'll only find yourself handing it over with your money for your newspaper and worms are not acceptable currency for the purchase of any form of goods in this country. Plus it'll probably make the check-out girl scream and then the police will get involved, and then it's only one short step to an article in the local newspaper and a reputation as 'the weirdo worm woman.'

I fear I've also returned one or two dead worms to a greener resting place. I think, if you're going to decompose in public, it's much nicer to do it on a spot of grass then on a slab of boiling concrete...

On a lighter note, I checked the greenhouse and propagator this morning and SEEDLINGS HAVE APPEARED! We have 3 cherry tomatoes, one ordinary tomato, three aubergines, some mixed salad leaves and a lone pea racing ahead on the germination front. This means I have to activate 'Growing Facility Number Three', i.e Heather's bedroom. The propagator seedlings will now go onto her windowsill which is light but not too warm and sunny, and this should prevent the seedlings becoming too spindly as they unfurl a few more sets of leaves. And this also frees up room for me to get cucumber and courgette seedlings going. (Not that courgette seedlings need much help in getting going. I reckon it'd take a nuclear explosion to prevent a courgette from growing -and then I wouldn't be at all surprised, after the mushroom cloud has settled, to find a stoical courgette amongst the rubble, steaming lightly and trying it's darndest to turn into a marrow.)

And whilst I was in Wilkos this morning getting some washing up liquid, I found a grapevine! It was only £3 and of indeterminate variety(other than 'Red Grape') but it had two little green leaves sprouting from the top of its twig and I thought I really ought to rescue it and give it a fighting chance, so I did. I'd quite like to plant it in the back garden, although it'd be safer from chicken molestation at the allotment.

Yesterday at the allotment, we relocated compost bin number two and are only a little gap short of completing a thoroughly satisfactory barrier between ourselves and the 'string girl' allotment. I dug over another hefty patch of ground, planted more onions and some shallots and Andy dug up some strawberry runners to bring home and pot up for the greenhouse and (hopefully) some early strawberries. We harvested the last of our tennis ball swedes, the pathetic efforts of the broccoli (although it tasted lovely), and some leeks. And then Andy begged to come home.

And so 'Growing Season '09' is well underway. A 'big circle of life' moment. Only without the lions. And Elton John.