Thinning out

The title of this entry does not refer to my shrinking waistline (although a daily dose of digging certainly helps). No, todays task was thinning the pea seedlings. The kids helped sow them and they were rather haphazard, so some areas had lots of seedlings all coming up in a huddle whilst other stretches had none at all.

I carefully thinned them out until they were spaced every 4-6 inches. It feels like infanticide. The same little seedlings we celebrated when they first appeared are now selected for death based on quite arbitrary factors.

So I saved some of them. I transplanted them into some pots and brought them home, rationalising that if any of the allotment plants die (by slug or pigeon attack for example) I can replace them from the stock at home.

Yes, I'm aware that if I can't even kill a pea seedling I'm going to really struggle to kill a chicken. I'm working on it.