Preventative Measures - Penny Wise/Pound Foolish?

One day, we may have a fruit cage.  Till then, I am bandaging thin fleece (the pound shop again) like gauze around my cherry tree and my blackcurrant bush against the depredations of the pigeons.  

One day, we may have some handy plastic cloches.  Till then, I pile grass cuttings around my new potatoes thus poultice their frost damaged ends.

One day, we may have moth traps to waft seductive scents under the antennae of the codling moths and entice them to a sticky end.

One day I will buy beer for the slugs.

One day, I will don latex gloves and squash every single grub of the Asparagus Beetle.

This week, I have noticed the blackfly on the tips of the broad beans and cut them off.

Mulch

I cannot remember our last solid downpour.  Every morning and evening we are now attending to thirsty plants - potatoes, strawberries, seedlings - and praying that the east wind will abate and the seasonal westerly wind pattern return.  Most neighbours and friends on the allotment are doing the same, trudging from tank to plot and tank again.

In contrast, our large greenhouse is a controlled miniature environment.  Here we can open a window, slide back the door, damp down the vine, encourage the squashes, sunflowers and peppers that are emerging from their seed cases.  But we cannot hold back indefinitely the french beans and runner beans.  At night it is cold, out of the sun it is chill.  It is still too early.

The raspberries and loganberries have put on an impressive display of flowers.  Deeply spread mulch slows evaporation, feeds worms and plants alike.  I am leaving the mature trees aside and concentrating on my little apple that has set so much fruit.  I would much prefer rain to mains water...

City dwellers enjoy festival sunshine and cheer.  Gardeners look for clouds.  This may now portend our future.  I hope not.