Better late than never?

Hurray! The leeks are in!

A bit of rain over the last few days has meant that at last quite a few of the jobs which have been waiting - desperately - for some moisture in the soil, can now be tackled.  Trouble is, the dry period went on so long that there are far too many jobs stacked back!

I managed to get the edge weeded around the shady area of the veg patch...and that inspired me to think perhaps waiting for the perfect time to lift the cardboard and weed the heavy, damp bed at this end was never going to happen - after all the cardboard has been down 3 months already! So I decided to try the old Dowding no dig here too - I put on an extra layer of cardboard on top of the old tatty one.... and then topped the lot with 2 inches deep of the Viridor green waste compost that I still had left after doing the 2 new veg beds:

And doesn't it look so much better? The wood around the edge is just placed temporarily whilst I was barrowing the soil, to keep an even depth all the way across the cardboard and so it didn't keep spilling over onto the path when I raked it about.  Once the cardboard underneath has moulded a bit and the soil has settled I will take the wood away.  For now this bed will stay like this, just to knock out the light and continue killing the weeds.  Then perhaps I might use it to set out my nursery of baby wallflower plants etc... we will see how it goes.

I remembered to take a few snapshots of plant groupings in the circle bed which I particularly like and may need to remember to keep:

Fabby lavender blue and lime green alchemilla flowers

More lavender with hot fuchsia coloured Geranium psilostemon clambering through it

That hot pink short geranium I didn't like the colour of in May? I like it now it's associating in a more relaxed way with the lime green alchemilla froth to temper it...

Just to remind myself that these plants might have potential (with a little tlc and pruning and space!) Hydrangea (its a good job I seem to be developing a soft spot for all these hydrangeas, isn't it?), violet blue hebe, I think, though poor thing is dreadfully squashed...and i'm not sure what this variegated wee thing is, a myrtle perhaps? Either way, its quite a muted variegation and looks nice.

Hurray for lunches from the garden!

After a solid morning sowing more beetroot, general pottering and starting the mammoth task of setting out the leeks from their home in the seedbed, into their final positions, I was ravenous! And not a morsel of bread to be had in the house...

But then I thought - doh! And rustled myself up a (rather oversized, it has to be admitted), omelettes aux fines herbes, with a side of cooked beetroot. I felt so virtuous!

Perhaps I should try to challenge myself to do this at lunchtime every day? I'd love to be able to have at least 50% of our tea ingredients from the garden too - and it could probably be achieved, given how well everything seems to be performing at the moment - but unfortunately the small fry would go into meltdown if I presented them with that many vegetables...How have I raised such carb and meat obsessed children???

Fruit overload imminent!

All I can say is - if I have to top and tail another gooseberry, or de-string another redcurrant, I will have the screaming abdabs and have to be carted off in an excessively tight jacket!!!

So far today, I have prepped and frozen:  6 lbs of redcurrants (!)
                                                               5 lbs of gooseberries
                                                               2 lbs of raspberries (to add to the 4 full freezer bags already in there, never mind the quantities of lovely warm fresh ones that got eaten almost straight after picking with lots of cream (and the occasional peach)...

The plan is to prep and freeze them now, and then defrost and process them (jam, jelly, cordial, whatever I can think of) at my leisure.  To save my sanity.  Because just picking and prepping them all at the moment is taking me the best part of 2 hours a day...

There's definitely a case forming for reducing the number of redcurrant bushes from 3 to 2 (or even 1?)

Off to bed now to try and relax my aching neck and shoulders...

xxx

 

Burgeoning growth revisited...and the great 'cut-back' commences...

Ok, I've had my strop and sulk and my gardener's natural optiminism (fatalism?) has returned.

The hail-damaged plants haven't died yet... so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will laugh in the face of their attacker and grow even more lustily.

So time for a quick round up of the ridiculous burgeoning growth around the garden, which both delights and threatens to overwhelm me at the same time!...

Charlotte potatoes finished flowering - I've dug just one plant so far and got 4 meals' worth!

Broad beans 'Green Windsor' cropping better now the rain has come, though the pods often look enormous, the beans inside aren't so big.  Ms Raven's Asolo lettuce mix about to go over...

E's precious 'Blue for the Bees' bed - the first time I've ever managed to enjoy a cornflower from seed

Looking down from the 'Blue Bee Bed', past the carrots and onions, towards L's pumpkin wigwam and general sunflower heaven

Onions 'Snowball' and Carrot 'Nantes 5' doing nicely

My favourite - Perpetual Spinach - I'm building up for my first pick this week, even though the leaves were quite battered by the hail, I know this is one plant that will shrug it off!  Takes more than a bit of hail to kill these...

Tomato plants already reaching the (admittedly quite low) roof of the greenhouse

With tomatoes on! Though not ripe yet...

Second cucumber so far

Raspberry and redcurrant overload

Dahlias flowering now, but I'm still trying to identify them

I love this unknown variety Day Lily - looks very much like the usual 'Stafford' but that's fine with me! Just the right colour against my favourite purples and blues.  

This clematis is actually more of a pale pinky-mauve than it appears here... lovely, but for some reason hiding round the back (east) side of its support, so you have to climb into the bed to see them..

It's neighbour, this gorgeous velvety character, is doing the same.  I wonder why?  It could be more sheltered I suppose, away from the prevailing westerly winds, but still, you'd think the flowers would seek the afternoon and evening sun rather than the morning sun which is dappled through the trees?

Sweet peas flowering at last

Couldn't resist another pic of this beauty!

Lots of ideas are starting to formulate in my mind's eye about the shape and direction I would like things to go in in the various beds and areas....I hope I can manage to translate them into words properly in my little 'plans and ideas' notebook, but we have at least made a start on the 'big prune back'....There are lots of places where very mature shrubs and trees desperately need crowns lifting, or odd overhanging branches removing back to the trunk to let essential light in below.  It's going to be a big, ongoing job, some of which I can tackle myself in the daytimes, and some requiring the assistance of the Engineer and his toys:

There he is! Shortly before getting the chainsaw stuck in the tree and having to take the chain off to extract it (with very poor grace)

It's amazing how much material just 2 branches produces

 Of course, pressing action of this kind is needed all over the garden...but I had to start here, the ash tree is overwhelming the old apple tree, and crucially, seriously overhanging my washing line!  Priorities, ladies...

I've earmarked the next candidate for the 'big boy's toys' action aleady - these very low hanging branches of the big copper beech, which have resulted in very odd growth in this otherwise very promising bed.  Once the light can reach in underneath more, I can prune here and start reviving these plants.

And here's the same offending branch busy being detrimental of the other side....

A visit to the library last week gained me some lovely garden design books which I have devoured with enthusiasm.  In particular, several photos have helped me start to capture my feelings for certain areas which will hopefully prove useful later when I try to keep my desired ends in sight over the winter:

I soooo want the circle bed to look more like this!!!! (At least I have the alchemilla mollis there making a start...)

This is the most useful picture I have found, making me realise just how far thick a wall grown pyracantha should really be, as opposed to 2-3 feet thick and threatening to depart from the wall! The ferns growing along the bottom associate really well, though of course my pyracantha wall faces south, but shaded by the big copper beech which is opposite, for most of the morning. 

I want my shady areas to look more like this...That clematis is astoundingly beautiful, it makes me want to cry (especially as i have no idea what variety it is)

I saw these topiaried cones of different sizes here, and thought - that's what the circle bed needs, much more evergreen backbone.  I always thought my preferred 'style' of garden wouldn't allow something as formal as geometric topiary...I would definitely say I'm not a 'formal' style person (though I love to enjoy it in other's gardens)  but interestingly in this picture, mixed with the relaxed forms of the japanese anenomes and the grasses, I started to wonder if I had been too hasty?

I'll finish with my 'Plant love of the Day', a hydrangea in the north west corner of the circle bed that is almost hidden underneath the spread of the magnolia (not for long!!!).  It caught my eye in the evening light and I was entranced.

The flowers are very white, much purer white than the different, but vaguely similar hydrangea right next to it - the outer flowers are like triangular stars in comparison to the more typical rounded shaped of the other one.

Perhaps someone might know what it's called?

xxx

Tears of frustration...

I feel very cross at myself, and feeble for being so upset over what is really not important when there are many many more terrible and heartbreaking things going wrong in the world.  But I couldn't stop myself from weeping sorrowfully when Monty uttered the words, "This is the peak of the year..." on Gardener's World...

The reason for my self pitying wallowing?

You know the huge electrical storm over Somerset yesterday? The one that resulted in the power being shut off to all the stages at the Glastonbury Festival and performers being hustled off stage for fear of lightning striking?  Well of course (being not at all that far away) we got it too.  Massively.  We were out, but experienced the incredible thunder and lightning and immensely forceful downpours....it all seemed very exciting... until I got home.

Approaching the house, I could see puddles of huge oddly oval hailstones the size of my little fingernail, still piled around unmelted (in these temperatures? It is still warm enough to wander about in a sleeveless top at 8pm!)  I thought I better check the chickens and investigate the garden...

These were the 'proud as punch' pictures I had taken that very morning, ready to upload here and discuss how amazingly well the 'no dig' experiment was going:

The sprouting broccoli end of the no dig brassica bed

No dig bed cavolo nero (and lettuces shot to flower, they obviously didn't like the hot dry period even protected under the micromesh, though the brassicas have thrived)

No dig legumes/curcurbits bed - looking from the runner bean end

Wigwam of climbing pumpkin 'Munchkin' 

Squashes 'Turk's Turban' and Butternut 'Hunter', looking like they've settled in and started to grow on despite the dry weather - the healthiest squashes I think I've ever grown.

Courgette 'Alexander' looking stunning, happy and fruiting already! I love the glory of the yellow flowers

Well, that'll teach me for feeling pleased with myself, won't it?

***********

Hailstone storms in June do not agree with beautiful, burgeoning fresh growth on vegetable crops it seems. The scene of devastation so few hours later is unbelievable....

Leaves of both courgettes terribly damaged.  I had to harvest the wee courgette visible this morning as it was pitted with bullet like holes!

Here's the 2 squashes seen before in all their promising glory - leaves totally shredded by the hail.

Unfortunately I didn't have the heart to photograph all the damage - basically the runner bean leaves, dwarf bean leaves, all pumpkins, courgettes all had their leaves torn to shreds.  The sprouting broccoli and cavolo nero had 50% of their leaves torn into holes and the large outer leaves which looked so gorgeous and healthy in the morning were snapped off!  I have harvested them to cook tomorrow.  I just hope hope hope that these plants are established and growing well enough to quickly regrow their leaves and not shoot to flower from the stress or just die.

In the morning I had taken lots more photos of the whole patch, greenhouse and the dahlia bed, to remind myself how well everything was doing.  I don't feel like going over them at the moment, even though most other things seemed to have survived relatively unscathed (although there are leaves, pine needles and petals all over the place that have been knocked off).  Once I've cheered up and regained my doughty gardener's pragmatism I will perhaps upload them then.

So for now, a few pictures taken the days before the storm, to remind me that the calm will return again xxx

"Cat in Dawn Light" taken by the Engineer from the hammock during the 'Big Tent Sleepout'

"Boy and Cat" 

Painting ongoing...

I can't believe how many days have gone by without me pausing for breath, never mind having time to write! Fear not, I have not been slacking, lazing around in the sun or generally expiring in the heat...honest.

Frenzied weeding in the evenings (the only time cool enough to contemplate such strenuous activity in the garden) and hours (and I mean hours) of watering.  The waterbutts have all been emptied, we have used the well! And even had to resort to the dreaded hose pipe just before the weekend to give the veg patch a good soak or risk losing the whole crop in this mad hot dry period.  I expect I will regret that when the water bill comes in, but what else could I do?

Daytimes have been taken up crawling around nibbling away at the painting of E's room - no photos yet as coats of paint drying don't make for very interesting photos!  But fingers crossed the big reveal shouldn't be that far away now - it better not be, I've got L's room to do too before school finishes in 4 weeks time...

Speaking of which, I'd better get off and start the glossing this afternoon while the weather is still so nice and good for paint drying!

(Today's photos are not of my garden, sadly! but of the garden of my friend whose pots and conservatory I'm in charge of keeping alive at the moment while she suns herself on holiday.. I captured a few of my favourite corners to keep the inspiration alive while I hide indoors from the heat..)

The painting is underway at last!

Hurray!

After waiting for weeks for the Engineer's emergency plaster patching to dry (it was about 2 inches thick!) we are finally off the starting blocks - ceiling done, Antique White walls done...

Gosh, doesn't the room look small with no furniture in it?

Actually the first coat of green was also achieved this evening, but sadly I am too tired to photograph it now - such a wimp.

It's so hot here that I wished I had thinned the paint a little bit, the two walls (one with the window) used up the better part of 2.5 litres of paint. Ridiculous. Too late now though.

And while I've been sweating away on her bedroom, what has the young lady concerned been doing?  Why, enjoying the weather properly, obviously:

Cheeky little minx.

I'm off to clean up the roller - oh joy - so I'll leave you with my two favourites in the garden this week:

Erigeron karvinskianus

Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll'