More slugs

I decided to empty out the seed compartments of red and pink poppies, simply uprooting and destroying all the latter (leaving only the rogue coriander seedling that managed to germinate from the compost!) and potting up three or four of the small field poppy seedlings. I also potted up the biggest of the Swan River daisies.

I then combined the remaining compost from the two empty seed compartments and put it back into one of them in order to plant some more calendula seed, in the hopes of providing some kind of succession to the two plants from last year that are in full flower now. And about five minutes after I'd put the compost in (by hand) and firmed it down and planted seed in it, first one and then *two* sizeable one-and-a-half-inch slugs emerged from the newly-planted soil at a rate of knots, clearly seeking to escape their new accommodation! How could they possibly have been in the compost that I had just been emptying out, teasing apart and separating seedlings out of? And how could I possibly have put them back in to a small pot with my bare fingers without noticing their presence...?

( wildflowers )

I also potted up half the basil from the tray in the mini-greenhouse, so that I could stand the chilli pot in that end of it -- the chilli seedlings are simply not developing at all (the seed-leaves still haven't opened), despite my struggles to find warm places for them both indoors and outdoors :-(