Full of hope and promise and then....

Every year starts the same.....in early spring the garden is full of promise for the coming year. The veg. patch is raked to a fine tilth, the potatoes and onions are planted out in lovely straight lines, the greenhouse is neatly lined with seed trays and we are full of hope for a bumper year.....then ....

..some seeds fail to germinate....first sowing of cucumbers,squash, marrows etc. were a complete failure, those that did germinate look decidedly sick.
Plants look as if though they have lost the will to live...the late rhubarb certainly has, also a strawberry plant.

A mole has worked it's way along the second row of broad beans and all this even before, whitefly, blackfly, caterpillars and slugs do their worst.Oh not to mention the threat of blight on the tomatoes and potatoes and the weather of course...too dry, too wet, too windy !
It's enough to make you wonder, why not just pop to the shops, it must be easier, but then you pick the first of the veg - just enough for one meal, all home grown and tasting wonderful. So next spring you stand looking at the neatly raked garden and tidy greenhouse and start all over again !!