Seedlings - a risky business

About three weeks ago I finally was able to plant up all my pots etc since the weather finally realised it was summer.  I took all the seedling out of the greenhouse, including ones Alan, a friend of ours,  had given me, and planted up all the pots, and got all the veg seedlings (far less than usual, just beans, courgettes, pumpkins) into the vegetable patch.
Then, as you do, I watered and fussed over them and watched them grow.  Only one set gave me cause for concern - the Rudbeckia Alan had given me.  I expected fernlike leaves, but these were quite big and fleshy.  Perhaps they'll change as they grow I thought, and kept watching.  Time passed and I grew more suspicious.  "Do you think these look like cabbages?", I asked Jonathan, and he thought so too.  So I sent a picture to Alan.  Are these Rudbeckia Alan?

 

"No, he replied, "that's purple sprouting Brocolli."  Apparently I should have read what was written on the back of the label.....of course.....

Like when my friend found a carrot growing in her hanging basket!  Which reminded another friend of how, when they didn't have enough greenery for buttonholes, used carrot tops!!

All the ladies who came to make the lovely satchels with Clare Kingslake last week deserve an award - it was sooo hot out out there but they produced some lovely work:

Finally, Peter the Peacock stopped a night with us last week.  This is him in with the chickens in their high-security run:

He's not very easy to see and was gone again by morning.