Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

No need to worry…

We’re away on holiday, having a lovely relaxing time except for the niggling concerns about my plants, would they be ok without my tender loving care?!

Luckily they are in good hands, and just to prove it, I’ve been sent some photos – the greenhouse is looking a bit crowded:

And is that a tiny tomato I see? As well as an even tinier cucumber?

And look, some tasty ripe strawberries, I’m hoping there are still some left to pick when we get home:

I can relax and enjoy the rest of our holiday now… and try and resist the urge to plant some tomatoes round our villa, with this heat, they’d do very well 😉

Wordless Wednesday

Everything’s Coming up Roses

For some reason just the pink roses are flowering at the moment, I do have a gorgeous yellow one and a deep red which smells glorious but nothing but buds on show from them.

Tree Following – June update

The blossom has all gone now and our crab apple tree is really bushing out, such a contrast from my first ‘tree following’ entry in March.

This month, I have managed to capture a glimpse of the little sparrow who chirps away from the tree or up on the telephone line nearer the house – he is a very noisy bird, never shuts up. I’m not sure if they may have been nesting under the eaves this year. I haven’t managed to spot as much activity as we did with the blue tits who nested and fledged a little brood at the back of the house but there has been a lot of commotion and to-ing and fro-ing so it is possible.

The crab apples are beginning to sprout, any ideas for doing something productive with them, please let me know as they are very bitter to taste. I’m not the cook in our family so I’ll pass on any ideas – we’ve not really been keen on the idea of jams/jelly as we probably wouldn’t eat much of it.

If you want more details of the Tree Following challenge and have a look at a wide variety of trees that are being tracked, head over to the Loose and Leafy blog. If you click on my Tree Following category you can see my original post in March, as well as the monthly updates to compare the difference.

 

Wordless Wednesday

Breaking News…

Early stages but there are encouraging early signs of a bumper harvest at Broad Bean corner…

There have also been some sightings of unexpected strawberries in the forgotten about and completely neglected basket left over from last year:

Finally for now, a bit disappointed in this garlic from last Autumn as it isn’t quite as big as I thought it should be – hopefully it will taste ok though, it is tied up and drying out before heading for the kitchen.

Garden Mysteries: Whodunnit?

In spite of having a netting cover, something has managed to sneak in and make a meal of my courgette plant! Luckily I planted the other courgette in a pot which is in the greenhouse so hopefully we will still manage to harvest some.

The cucumber I planted in the same bed has also been nibbled but not quite so viciously – and is that the tiny beginnings of a cucumber I can see? Hope it will survive, again I’ve got others in pots in the greenhouse so we should be ok. I’ve now got it covered with a plastic crate held down with tent pegs for the time being and will set up another beer trap in this raised bed as I think it is probably slugs.

 

There has also been a tomato disaster, this time it was the little green insects nibbling away at the stems that did it. I managed to rescue a couple but they are looking a bit fragile so time will tell if they can recover. I really do have far too many tomato plants though and the greenhouse ones seem to be thriving (so far…).

 

In more cheerful (and colourful) news, I’ve been busy planting up hanging baskets…

 

Very busy weekend in the garden, I’ve finally got round to planting the tray of leek seedlings I sowed earlier in Spring, plus the sweetcorn plants and sown some beetroot. Several hanging baskets and a couple of troughs planted, quite a few things potted on, a hydrangea and a bleeding heart plant rehomed in much bigger pots and a lot of tidying up and sorting out done. I’m exhausted, I’d like a weekend to get over my weekend now please!

Delighted to have some roses flowering too, I even cut a few and made a little display: