Insect(ivore)s

I pulled up most of the poppy plants that are dying and won't flower again, carrying their hundreds of feasting ladybirds with me carefully to the patch of garden where I'll be harvesting the seed.

A lot of my garden is large lumps of clay - almost impenetrably hard in this heat. In the spring I made a layered bed on top of some of it, with compost and cardboard, to plant out baby lettuces, then I covered them with a large, walk-in, anti-bird cage. Now that those lettuces are big enough (I hope) to survive all predators except me, I moved the cage to a bit of garden I haven't yet rehabilitated. I bashed the clay with a fork and with water, mixed in a bit of compost and broke it down some more with a hand fork. I hope that tomorrow I can plant out my next lot of baby lettuces.

Then I ate lettuce for supper!