Today ....... I

Dug my potatoes up.

Picked a few tomatoes

A sweetcorn

A courgette or two

A handful of runner beans

And some beetroot.

Fat caterpillars polished off a bit more of my broccali

And O/H's storks line-danced in the sun.

Then it poured down so I went inside and put the kettle on ........

Love is .......

The weather in UK has been stiflingly hot for the last few days. Finding enough water to keep the veggies and plants from dying  was getting to be a bit of a problem. Yesterday my bestest  nephew  brought the troops down. ( They've broken up school now for the summer holidays) and they set up a really good watering system for me. They picked a bag of the broad beans they'd grown  and then when the weather got too hot they came in and painted these lovely pictures for me. I feel blessed.

Community Garden - Work in Progress

A cluster of poppies have seeded themselves amongst the weeds and debris in the top polytunnel.

The leeks I planted out last year have all gone dome shaped. But as Arleen so aptly puts it, " I'm doing OK."

The second crop of potatoes, my young friends planted, are all starting to come into flower which means more spuds not too far away. We've eaten the first crop they planted in the other poly tunnel. They cropped brilliantly and tasted just as good.

We sowed a crop of broad beans outside and they're ready for picking.

The runner beans were a bit of a disaster. Not enough water early on.Some of the leaves died off.  The beans curled up instead of being straight.  but we've had a couple of meals off them and they taste just as good.  I've tried to remedy them by soaking a margarine tub- full of chicken poo pellets in a five gallons of water over night and then soaking the roots. It seems to be helping because little green shoots are starting from the base.

Picked the first courgette today.

Cabbage doing OK. Not many Cabbage White butterflies about this year. Perhaps the weather's been too cold.

Tried the parsnips today.

Sweetcorn, lettuce and beetroot in this tunnel. Oh and pumpkins and dahlias on the other side.

Sowed some more beetroot seeds today. We seem to be eating them quicker than we can grow them, but they taste delicious.
Have a good week
Molly x

Darling Buds of May Bank Holiday (2015)

The mini summer we had in April has evaporated and the last couple of days have been cold, grey and damp. So much so that for a couple of nights I've lit the Rayburn again. But then, if you didn't have a drop of rain, nothing would grow.

The blossom on the fruit trees seems to have appeared almost over night. Everything looks so much fresher after the rain. A little bit of joy amongst the scrabble of branches - a cherry tree weighed down with pink blossom. It was more left there, than planted there and has certainly come into its own this year. We'll be lucky if we get any cherries - the birds usually get there first, but the flowers are stunning.

That's a Crab Apple (Malus)  tree from down at 'the Mill'

 I love it when all the wild flowers grow where they will. Nobody can design a garden like that.

Stitchwort, wild strawberries and violets in the hedgerow.

And a bank of wild primrose.

I found this fungi growing at the top of the garden. It's got a thick cream coloured stem and a black sort of net toadstool head. Does anybody know what it might be? Looks a bit sinister?

A quick tour round my veggies (for John & Mary in New Zealand)
Rocket new potatoes are just starting to come into flower.

The cabbages the munchkins bit off earlier have grown again, sometimes with two little heads so ... 'It's an ill wind .... ' as they say.

 My broad beans are in flower. I sifted a little dressing of lime on them. They seem to like it OK. Well at least they haven't died so that's a bonus.

Runner beans are starting to go up the sticks.

Five Shirley tomatoes have got yellow trusses. Got fleece wrapped around them to keep out the wind.

A square of Little Gem lettuce.

Bye for now. Have a good week. x

A good day for planting potatoes

Yep, John and Cro, it's been great here too. Had my trays of new potato seeds chitting (waiting for the green shoots to spurt) on a back windowsill since the beginning of February. According to legend, setting them out in trays like that for about 3 or 4 weeks will (hopefully) bring a crop of freshly dug new potatoes on about a month earlier. We'll see.

Chitted Rocket Potatoes

Forked over a patch of ground where last years leeks had grown. Made a line of green string between two forks and dug a trench a spade  deep all along. A handful of GroMore fert along the row. Hoed it in and then scattered a tub of chicken manure pellets over the soil, hoeing that in as well.

Spaced each potato about a foot apart from each other and planted them, green eye up.

Marked the rows with bamboo canes, raked over and job done. Peter Rabbit polished off nearly all my cauliflowers early on. I covered up the cabbages with  garden fleece. He didn't like that and left them alone, so hopefully, still might get a few spring greens yet.

Blue sky and sunshine all day. The cherry blossom's really come out today. it's lovely.

My hellebore's out.

And the miniature daffies are out in the front border.

A few weeks ago I bought quite a few packets of end of season bargain bulbs from Coedy. They were only 20p each, far too cheap to leave there. Anyway, they seem to be growing OK. I covered them with wire baskets to stop the pesky cats digging them up which they did without fail practically every morning. They've not yet figured how to get around that one. Molly 1 - Cats 0.

'Would we ever?'

Have a good week.

Adiós Gonzalo

It's been a strange sort of day today - one minute blazing sunshine, howling gales,  an ominous black sky and stampeding rain the next. I was so glad that I'd invested a tenner's worth into Rhino tape from Coed-y and hunkered the poly tunnels down as much as I could the other day. Amazingly enough they are still holding together (only just) and my plants have survived (so far). But we've been lucky - not so good  in West Sussex and all along the west coast, right across up to Cumbria,

Brompton Stocks and Antirrhinums.

At the end of August, I collected up quite a few  seeds from around the garden. I sowed them in margarine tubs, pricked them out into seed trays and they  are coming on quite well. Will over winter them and plant them out in the spring, (she says). Our son and his partner are planning to get married in July/August next year so I've offered  to grow  flowers  for the pending 'do'.  J said that she would like to do her own flowers, so I told her that she can have the pick of as many as she wants. (If she wants them). I love weddings.

This was one little patch, earlier on in the year - a bit of a mish mash of all sorts.

My friend brought me two baby holly hock plants last spring. They were gorgeous and have produced loads of seeds. I've planted a sea of little seedlings from them. Hope they survive the winter. Looking quite good up to now.

Aquilegia and Pinks

Another scrambly border. This pic was taken in early summer. I spent yesterday cutting everything back and rooting out all the weeds, I've taken some cuttings of the one in the front so I hope they 'take'.

Canterbury Bells, lupins and a little oak sapling I found growing in the middle of them.

Holly hocks,  lupins, primulas  and  stocks

Still got a few runner beans hanging on. Hope there's enough to make a meal tomorrow.

Musselburg Leeks

Carrots

Beetroot

Marrows

The wind seems to have died down at last so here's to tomorrow. Have a good week
Molly