I wasn’t fishing for compliments, honest – although all such are very gratefully received. I just meant that I’ll never be as big as Franklin or QueerJoe or the Yarnharlot (even if I put in some lists) but that we are happy with each other so it doesn't matter. I had a look at the statistics this morning, which I don’t often do, and I think you’re right that numbers have crept up a bit. Readership is in the high 400’s, occasionally topping 500 on days when things are slow at the office.

I’ve got to get back to work on Feedly, and also on Craftsy. I have a constant sense of guilt about not having done Franklin's homework.

I’ve turned the corner of the 2^nd Mind the Gap sock, again making a good job of not having corner-of-gusset holes. There are still a couple of rounds to go before the gusset decreases are finished. This is the Bog Standard Heel – I’ve forgotten its technical name. Flap, turn heel, pick up stitches along flap edges, decrease to original number, knit on.

So for today, a report on doorstep gardening. I have learned a few things, and have big plans for next year.

Everybody’s fine except for the huauzontle, and something may come of that yet.

We’ve been having a spell of tee-shirt weather, the first in a very long time. There certainly was nothing like this in ’12, probably not in ’11. The chillis have been standing out on the doorstep night and day, and seem to be enjoying it. The Apaches have got the word about the solstice, and like the big jalapeno have stopped growing and flowering. Both are carrying a reasonable crop, but it’s not turning red yet.

The crop on the big jalapeno is reddening. The newest addition to the stable, the Scotch Bonnet plant I bought at the Botanic Gardens on June 2, has grown mightily and has now got flower buds. Small ones.

The sorrel pot has already produced one soup, and will be harvested for another within a few days. A success. And the plants – it’s perennial – will be transplanted to Strathardle at the end of the summer.

So will the onions. But what are they? 

In the Strathardle garden, I have two bunches of onions which look exactly like the textbook pictures of “Welsh onions”, allium fistulosum – thick, hollow stems, and flowers that look like textbook flowers. I also have about a dozen other bunches, no flowers, which I keep lifting and dividing. They are much more refined, one might put them halfway between chives and Welsh onions. I think some or most of them are the ones you gave me last year, Hat. There may be a few I grew from seed myself.

This year’s pot was grown from seeds I bought from the Real Seed Company, but their website is no help. So far, they look more like the Strathardle in-betweens than like Welsh onions. It is the in-betweens which I hope will eventually give me a perpetual source of “spring onions” for cooking. I use a lot. So this pot, too, will be transplanted to Strathardle soon whether or not it provides anything for cooking before then.

And the herbs flourish, including the thyme plants transplanted from a supermarket pot because neither B&Q nor the Botanic Gardens could sell me a little plant of culinary thyme. They are somewhere to the right, hidden under the nasturtiums, but they're doing fine.