My least favourite weed after dandelions are Mares Tail, a green knobbly stalk that lurk in my front garden. These things are terribly difficult to eradicate – for three years I’ve grumbled and pulled at them. They are appearing in the new bed we dug in the front as fast as I can pull them up…

I so much want to enjoy the pleasant bits but there’s a lot to be done. I even tried to kill some weeds using a boiling kettle, a tip I read online, where boiling water can kill down to the roots. And it’s definitely killed one spiky monster, so once I find the most industrial gloves we have I’ll pull it out and destroy.

There are beautiful flowers appearing and a definite departure from yellow…

And we got rid of some of the drying out trimmings that were too much for our neighbour goodwill (and brown bin!) by burning them in our fire pit after the barbecue. Smoky smells pervaded afterwards but we are diminishing the cuttings needing composted.