Tales from a small garden; work continues well , everything seems to grow so well in the garden soil, despite looking dry & chalky, it may even be better next year, with a good Winter dig & plenty of organic matter dug into it. The perennial herbaceous flowerbed I have been preparing over the last couple of months is now ready for planting up, I must follow up those offers from friends, when dividing up their perennials. Following up the removal of the old vines, I bought on line, a black and  a white grape for outdoor growing, the white grape, when it arrived had four bunches already on it!, I had visions of enjoying  some nice juicy grapes, but no!, the blackbirds eat the lot! I have never had birds eat my grapes in any of my previous gardens, they will not get them next year though, as they will netted up as soon as the fruit starts to form. This is my first property, where the back of the house faces due South, and as such, where the greenhouse is situated, it is in full sun from sunrise to sunset, it may have need good shading, but it has produced great results from the plants growing in it. One phenomenon, which is new to me is the “curly” cucumber, I have canes the full length of the greenhouse roof with netting in between, & the three plants I have grown have fairly romped away. It started me thinking, what causes bent cucumbers?, I expect we all know the story of those old Victorian gardeners who grew cucumbers in glass tubes to keep them straight. What I have found is do not let the fruit touch anything, not even a leaf, cut these away, if they look like touching, this phenomenon is known as thrigmotropism  try saying that!. So far it seems to work, now having nice straight cucumbers to give away, I personally do not like the taste of them , but really enjoy growing them .It was only as recently  as 2009 that the EU came to it’s  senses and allowed the sale of crooked cucumbers but even this was restricted to no more than one centimetre within each ten centimetres of length! With luck I might have nice straight  cucumber to enter into our Autumn show. To be continued ……..