Harvesting...

After a couple of wonderful wet days - yeah I know, strange statement, but the garden and allotment were desperate for a soaking and the front garden water butt was completely empty - today we popped up the allotment. Our onions have been a bit hit and miss so far, probably due to a vole or a mole we think, so J picked up some shallot sets in the bargain box of Poundland, at just 50p a bag we thought a late planting was worth a chance.  So let's see what happens now.

While he was doing that I picked some more cornflowers for the house. They are amazingly abundant this year and even after picking enough for two bunches for our house and another posy for our neighbour there are dozens and dozens left for the bees. The whole row of plants was covered in them and they even landed on the posies as I was cutting them - a really joyful sight and sound to behold and one of the many reasons we have flowers dotted all around the plot and never use pesticides. I made the most of the self-sown chamomile at the edge of the bean bed and added a few stems of that to the posies for contrast and scent too.

Next job was to pick some of the broad beans that are, at last, starting to develop plus some leaves from the chard plants and a few stalks of asparagus, we can truly say we are getting harvests from the plot now and are looking forward to those to come.

Climbing beans , peas and tagetes doing well

Purple Podded Peas and broad beans 

Pea flowers to rival any ornamental

Soon there will be spuds!

Chamomile and Cornflowers

Of Boblets and Baby Succulents

Another Boblet bit the dust this week - or more accurately I had to admit defeat and throw the stick with two wrinkled leaves in to the compost bin. A bit sad but it prompted me to take a closer look at the other mini-Plants and write an update on our winter cuttings-taking exercise.

Back in February we decided that Bob the rubber plant had outgrown his space and needed to be cropped but, as usual, we couldn't resist the chance to try propagating him and getting a few free plants to share with friends and family. Of course this wasn't the first time this temptation had struck - remember all those little leaf cuttings of succulents back in October? Well, whilst Bob seems to have been a bit more miss than hit with only two really strong looking plants coming out of our adventures and 1 more that is looking ok - not bad from just 5 cuttings, the strike success with the succulent leaves has also been quite impressive even if a slow burn. We now seem to have mini plants coming out of our ears! Still it means I've got a dozen or so to take to the Hospice next week for sharing around and once they've all left home I can give Bob his second trimming...

Boblet #1

Boblets #2 and #3 plus arms of a few friends!

Echeverria minis

More echeverria minis

A fancy for flowers...

According to the UK Flowers and Plants Association the UK spends about £2.2billion each year on indoor plants and cut flowers, of which about 90% is on cut flowers. Now it seems to me that as most of these come from overseas and are flown around the world using up valuable resources for ephemeral pleasure rather than necessity, then this should be one of the first places we look when we want to make the switch to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, whether you buy dozens of bunches for every room in the house every week or just one bunch in a year.

Now I don't mean you should give up cut flowers, heaven knows they are one of my favourite treats and bring so much joy to lives that in my view, only the grumpiest of environmentalists or frugal fanatic would say that's it, no flowers for the house ever, for anyone. But there are questions we can and should ask before we make any purchase, especially a luxury item like flowers. I mean, when did you last ask yourself any of these questions when faced with a bunch of flowers in the supermarket or need to make a last minute order? -  Where do these come from? How they are produced? How did they travel? Is there an alternative?

Did you know that there are dozens of companies and small producers up and down the UK producing beautiful, sustainable, local UK-grown blooms that are available through local florists, direct from the grower or through the post? In many cases you can even source British grown flowers through your supermarket if you check the labels carefully and if you stick to seasonal beauties then you'll probably save money too.

If you need to buy flowers why not check out social media sites under the hashtag #BritishFlowers and #GrownNotFlown for inspiration and sources or look at sites such as The Great British Florist and Flowers From the Farm or ask your florist to recommend blooms grown here in the UK.

But for even greater enjoyment, especially if you want flowers for yourself, you can produce gorgeous bouquets and posies from your own garden or allotment for most if not all the year round. Whether you just take a few blooms from your border or dedicate half the allotment to a cutting garden why not try cutting your own flowers once in a while?

June 2019

May 2019

March 2019

Summer 2017 

Summer 2017

Room with a view at the end of May

As another month draws to a close I thought I'd give you a peek at the view from the living room window this afternoon. How can I not smile every time I look out on this?

At the back of the picture is our dog rose - delicate white petals on thin but very prickly branches that spring up from the deep pink geranium at it's base and weave in and out of the privet hedge and the buttercup bush - this is the first year it has looked this good - obviously roses are thriving this year. The bush roses are really coming into their own now - Gentle Hermione wafts her beautiful perfume around whenever we step out the front door and Alan Titchmarsh is bowing under the weight of his enormous pink blooms whilst The Dark Lady has graced us with just 4 deep red cushions. Rosa Mundi and Grandad Knight's Moss rose are still just in bud promising colour for a many weeks to come. The holly and flowering currant are now adding depth and structure to the back bed, their deep greens contrasting with the bright beech hedge behind. The lovely unusual white with dark blue inner delphinium spikes are just starting to open - she sits in a pot to try and keep her safe from slugs as we've lost so many over the years. The clematis is just a tangle of seed heads wrapped around the drain pipe now but I love the effect of the feathery fronds so will leave them alone for a while longer. Dotted throughout the beds are self-sown nigella, aquilegia, lemon balm and a few of the relocated cornflowers adding to the general waftiness of the beds. The hollyhock in the foreground is enormous but just sits in a crack between the paving slabs returning each year, far healthier than any we have deliberately sown anywhere else. The lovely sweet pea tower made from our allotment willow is on the left - can't wait for those to start to flower next month and add to the beautiful scents wafting around.

The planted area of the front garden measures just 6.5 by 2.5 metres and has hedges on two sides with a small paved parking and bin storage area and an even smaller area of patio slabs leading to the front door where I keep adding pots of herbs, flowers and salads!

Dabbling distractions

Bleeping infection back, hopefully can be treated successfully at home this time but it's a bugger nonetheless so whilst I'm letting the antibiotics do their work I got yesterday's watercolours out again and tried to make some improvements to yesterday's dabblings.

At the end of yesterday

As good as it's getting

What it should have looked like....

Where's our rain?

Long view of the main plot area

As the much anticipated rain didn't appear yesterday we spent a couple of hours back up the plot this morning giving everything a thorough watering, we don't water often once everything's established but when it's newly planted we give the plot a thorough soaking to give the young plants a fighting chance.

Last of the Blue Lake beans in place

We also planted out the last of the climbing beans - Blue Lake and Kew Blue this time. and scattered some Cosmos seeds in amongst the sunflowers so with a bit of luck will have plenty of beautiful big cut flowers later in the summer.

Kew Blues in, cosmos sown, space still for brussels...

Talking of cut flowers, whilst J continued cutting back the weeds and long grass at the edge of some of the beds I delved into the Cornflower patch once more as it had exploded into bloom again even though I picked enough for two vases on Saturday - still this gave me a chance to give two lovely posies to a couple of neighbours that are always looking out for others and being incredibly kind.

 Homegrown, pesticide free and thoroughly beautiful

Last job of the day - picking more rhubarb, admiring the plot, and taking some snaps. A joyous end to a lovely long weekend of pottering - now we really do need some rain!

Happy Place

A gorgeous couple of hours at the allotment today. Really warm and beautifully sunny, we were surrounded by tweeting, cawing, croaking and buzzing as we planted out our climbing beans, peas and courgette. We also added tagetes and sunflowers to the mix so with a bit of luck that's extra food for the buzzies and blooms for my late summer vases. 

Thanks to all Js hardwork prepping the no-dig beds in the cooler months planting out was a relatively quick and easy job, I even managed to put a few of the Blue Lakes and Borlotti in the ground. The paper cup, loo roll inner and plastic punnet plants had really healthy roots and transplanted really easily. We're now hoping the promised Bank Holiday showers actually materialise to supplement the watering we did.

Last job of the day for J was to mow the paths whilst I sat in the shade and watched the goldfinches flit about in the willow hedge chirruping madly at each other. Unfortunately these joyful little critters seemed to be camera shy so no photos of them but I did manage to capture a few bees on the comfrey and what I think is a 20-spotted lady-bird on the alkanet.

 Harvest for the day? Two vases of cornflowers and cerinthe blooms plus a couple of asparagus spears for tea.