Dordogne, France

First of all thankyou to all those of you who answered my last question. This is just to tell you that suddenly this last week, after a couple of days of gentle rain, and much warmer nights and days everything suddenly appears to be recovering. Potatoes and peas, and mange toute are in flower, carrots and everything else are starting to look well. I have used an old cushion cover and filled it with some of our well rotted cow poo, placed it in a dustbin and after the rain filled our water butt it overflowed into the bin so I used the resulting smelly water, diluted and watered everyhing except the carrots. The french beans were starting to have black fly so I doused them with soapy water and put ant killer round the base of the plants so that appears to have cured that. So anyone who wants to visit for dinner is now more than welcome. Hopefully we will have fresh veg from the garden to feed our first B and B guests on 19th June. Thanks again for all your help and ideas.

• 2 Jun, 2009