days go by

well the days seem to be flying by, a lot of it seems unproductive. think I've seen about three days of sun this 'summer'. its a bit depressing!! harvesting: potatoes, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, peas, mange-tout, courgettes, tomatoes, beans, onions. in flower: lavendar, goats-rue, monarda, sedum, geraniums, pelargoniums, begonia, hostas, sweet-peas, lychnis, marigold, diggers speedwell, cone flower, carnations, astrantia, clematis, persicaria and the tall purple thing, sure it has a name! also the yellow thing, which begins with a p. . . .ha. . memory loss. . .
I have just spent a weekend with Katy at a natural horsemanship clinic run by Quantuum Savvy from Australia, what they must think of our summer weather I don't know! it was freezing last August when they were here. I have learned so much my brain is a bit fried now.

this holiday

a few days off work, nice and dry today so I'm not so much gardening as waging 'damage control' on borders and spaces which have not been weeded since last year!!!!
vegies being overgrown by 'italian aster', a lettuc left to go to seed, but I didn't realise it would take over!!
still, out from underneath things, the produce from a bucket grown potato, yum!

tomatoes!

hiding in the slightly neglected greenhouse, things keep growing even when you're not looking
will probably check on them a bit more carefully now, the last couple of weeks I've been so busy its been a case of watering but not looking.

todays garden

these pretty little flowers are from a sempervivum, a house leek. it lives in the greenhouse and seems to quite like it.
I took several photographs to try to show the bees in the foxglove flowers but this is the only one that shows, its very dark inside a foxglove flower and the bees can dissapear totaly out of sight!
and just look at all the flowers on the broad beans! I imagine every one turning into a lovely pod of beans. everything in the veggy garden seems very behind, some folks seem to already be harvesting these. I am getting great lots of lettuce, some nice baby onions and have had one teeny baby courgette.

internet on!!

gardening going on! imagine this bed, beetroot, parsnips, sweet corn. . . I can see it in my minds eye. . .
rhododendron, flowering away
this azalea just flowered too, its gets better every year this one.
and the rhubarb survived, I still haven't tasted any on if yet.
and the poppies just before they burst into flower. . . . .

salad and potatoes

fresh salad whoopee!! wild garlic leaves, ground elder, garlic cress, chives, red lettuce, rocket, mizuna and primrose flowers.
and thankyou to Rosemary and Dan for the lovely already chitted potatoes. they are now planted in buckets in a nice long row in the garden.

greehouse things

the onions seedlings, out in one of Billy's coldframes. these two coldframes are going to be very useful!
things! growing! whoppee!!
two kinds of lettuce, I am desparate for some fresh lettuce to eat.
some mizuna, to add to the 'hopefully soon' salad.
and some carrots, to have as a wee treat.

mushroom harvest

here's the mushroom crop from the box. acording to the instructions if I cover the surface lightly with fresh compost, make sure its damp, bring it into the warm for a few days again then that may bring on some more.

real food

Real Parsnips, not the plastic looking, clean, uniform stuff the supermarkets flog us. and sprouts so fresh you can crunch them raw. (the parsnips are about a foot long)
my stoney soil always seems to produce very 'leggy' parsnips and carrots. no prizes for being pretty but they always taste fabulous.

tidying

it seems a shame to take ou thte sugar-snap pea plant when it is still producing nice flowers. the few peas it has produed recently have been quite bitter, not enough sunshine
and the main part of the plant is milldewed and dying back, so out it came. I also took out the runner bean plants.
and tidying round produced some hidden veggies, potatoes, little turnips and a carrot. thats dinner sorted then!

the whole pumkin harvest

one nicely ripened Small Sugar pumpkin. and yes, it was the whole harvest. . .
very yummy, roasted along with these other veggies.



if you are more adventurous than me and like to cook I have been sent a link to a fabulous blog from Seattle called Cook and Eat.

respectable salad

this is fairly respectable for an end of season salad. there is not enough for everyday now but I was pleased with this. it contains a funny wee carrot, a shallot, runner beans, sugar-snap peas, oak leaf lettuce, chard, and a green pepper.

omlette

two red onions, green pepper, purple aubergine, sugar snap peas, yellow and green courgettes. all destined for a veggy omlette.
our recent frost has 'ended' the season in the garden, the onions are now lifted and drying in the greenhouse, the auergines and peppers are fading away so need cleared out from the greenhouse, the courgettes and peas need chucked into the compost. hopefully the leeks, brussels and parsnips will provide some winter food, and I'll see if lettuce will keep going in the greenhouse or a cold frame for a while.

salad

yesterdays salad from the garden, lettuce, pepper, carrot, onion, runner bean, snap pea, courgette.

falling standards?

I usually sieve my compost and then apply it to a recently weeded bed, but trying to fit everything in round the weather is taking its toll. Today I layered the compost complete with lumps and bits straight onto the garden, weeds included. Then I realised what's missing. . .a team of gardeners and a row of cottages at the bottom of the garden for them to live in. . .

the veg beds are being cleared as things finish, showing bare soil again. my recently emptied compost bin was filled to the top again with 'clearance' items.
and one small pumkin, yipee!! its raised off the ground to try and protect it, hopefully it will begin ripening before it gets too cold.

veggies

leeks, cabbages, brussels sprouts. I think I 've posted a picture of this bed before but I find it so pleasing to look at its getting another outing.
broad beans, these have now all been harvested and eaten, the row cleared away. its that time of year when things start to stop.
Tansy supervising from under the runner beans.

Sunday

lobelia cardinalis
cosmos? growing up through a hebe
startling colour on this little viola,
a pumpkin baby, none are growing any bigger than this before they fall off.

in flower today: lobelia, liatris, nicotanis, aster, poppy, goats-rue, stocks, lavendar, wode, roses, gladioli, geranium, lavetera, lupins, sidalcea, borage, persicaria, delphiniums, sedum, f0xglove, linaria, vinca minor, gailarda, lychnis, carnation, ageratum, marigold, hosta, monarda, sweet-pea.
harvesting: peas, beans, mangetout, lettuce, cucumbe, tomatoes, leeks, onions, turnips, carrots, cabbage, kale, courgettes, chard.

veggies growing

in the foreground of this bed are leeks, behind them are brussels sprouts(recently planted out when I cleared my first lettuce patch), cabbages and kale, also one red poppy trying to hide.
this Nyagous tomato is starting to ripen, changing colour very slowly, the skin looks rough and cracked but it should taste ok.

Sunday in the garden

I spent all day Sunday in the garden. I finished sieving one compost bin, which I had been rained off doing last weekend and then I used a surprising amount of it up immediatley just for replanting and a few bits to scatter inbetween plants. The first lettuce patch was taken up, distributed amongst neighbors and replanted with brussels sprouts plants. The carrot patch is very poor, mostly due to it being one of Tansys best place to sleep, everything was squashed and the ground compacted so seedling cant come up. I have planted some celeriac in one bare corner and will leave the rest to their fate of grow or be squashed. Various things in pots were found homes,and many weeds found themselves without one. The tomatoes were given another haircut, I also cut off a few flowering stalks as this is meant to give them more energy to put into the tomtoes they already have.
this poppy has self seeded just beside the bean wigwam, there is one in the onions too, not something to be weeded out.
this lily is flowering really well, it started off a couple of years ago as a bit of side-shoot.
and the clematis is smothering the shrub its meant to be growing through, I'll cut it right back when it stops flowering.

fruits of the flowers

green courgette
yellow courgette
blueberry herbert
blackcurrants

cucumber, homemade pickles
cream sausage(yes really) tomato
nyagous tomatoes
sugar snap ann