I’ve never really understood what ‘pea sticks’ are. The gardeners on the television talk about them and when I have seen them, they appear to be prunings from large perennials.

With this in mind, I used some prunings I had saved from last year, for my peas to scramble up. They looked so much more aesthetically pleasing than any metal obelisk, much more natural and everything was going swimmingly, until my little peas put on big fat pods and then the sheer weight of the plants completely crushed their spindly supports.

Nature is so forgiving though. The peas are still growing and I harvested a lovely crop, which we had with our roast last Sunday. I will have to keep a close eye on them though, because all that foliage on the soil is a perfect hiding place for those blasted snails. I won’t get any new pea pods developing, so I have planted some peas in modules in the greenhouse to catch a crop at the end of the summer.

I read some good advice from Toby Buckland, gardener and presenter of Gardeners’ World, which was that he grows cordon varieties of tomatoes in his green house to save space. Cordon varieties grow on one stem and you nip out the side shoots as they grow. I have grown a bush variety in my greenhouse and they have gone wild, I can hardly get into the greenhouse now. They are growing well with lots of fruit setting but I have had to tie them in tight as they are getting very rowdy.

I am a perfectionist when it comes to my work, especially photography. Good enough just isn’t good enough for me but strangely I have a completely different attitude when it comes to the garden.

This is only my third summer growing vegetables and I am learning constantly and it seems making mistakes at the same rate.

They are only minor mistakes and it’s not stopping me harvesting tasty vegetables and having lots of fun in the process. The phrase ‘There is always next year’ seems to be leaving my lips a little too often but c’est la vie. I think I will make a list at the end of the season and pass on my findings.

If you have any top tips, I would love you to share them but for now I am off to read up on pea sticks. I need to unravel the mystery and find out what they are really made of.