welcome to my little suburban oasis, filled with flowers,fruit trees and vegetables

Monday 27 May 2013

More rescuing...

Another bargain from the reduced rack - violas down from £6 to 50p!
They looked like they'd been allowed to dry out too much and were flagging but a good watering followed by being planted in the garden and now they're looking much better.

Sunday 26 May 2013

Picked this week 26th May 2013

 I'm managing at last to get a bit more variety in my salad leaves - 'proper' lettuce above
and chard below with hot white radishes.


...and a mix of just about everything



Hoping for home grown tomatoes and cucumbers soon though.


Friday 24 May 2013

Mad May Weather


This Spring's crazy weather continues with blustery winds and hail - so much hail that it looked like snow had fallen.

Sunday 19 May 2013

Picked this week - 19th May 2013



 We've picked a mass of rhubarb this week - first these thin sticks from the allotment ...




..then some thicker ones from the garden - about 4 lbs in all.


And lots of salad leaves and radishes


and some more leaves..

 ...and more..
the thin white radish are from seed I collected from last year's 
surprise crop of white radishes and I'm very pleased to see them grow


a little variety among the failed running-to-seed brassicas this week -
some failed cauliflowers that are as big as a small head of broccoli

Thursday 16 May 2013

Just in case....


Double wrapped tomatoes
The calendar says it's May and we should be heading towards summer but in Yorkshire and Devon snow has been falling in the last 24 hours - and tonight's temperature here is set to drop to 3. That's not desperately cold ... but  .. I've got tomato plants and a cucumber planted out in the greenhouse and baby lettuce in the garden and blossom on the apple trees. There's nothing really I can do apart from cover everything in swathes of fleece and bubblewrap and keep my fingers crossed .....and wait till morning...
somewhere under there is the cucumber..

Tuesday 14 May 2013

A visitor to the greenhouse.

I was moving pots around in the greenhouse when something unexpectedly jumped at me - a frog, barely visible against the soil. The neighbours have a pond and the frogs hop about between there and our greenhouse, hopefully eating slugs on the way.

Monday 13 May 2013

Picked this week - 12th May 2013


Lots of lovely salad leaves again this week - lettuce, spinach and mustards - with more radish.







  And more of the bolting brassicas - we're still eating last week's so these have gone a bit limp in the fridge!

Friday 10 May 2013

Gifts for the garden


I've been on the receiving end of people's generosity this week.
First a root of mint and a lot of tomatoes from my mum.





















 Then a huge amount of bluebells through Freecycle. I've planted these here and there round the garden, mainly under fruit bushes and I'm hoping to have my own mini bluebell wood.




Thursday 9 May 2013

Everything coming up rosy - well, pink and purple


It's a time of year when my garden overflows with pink and purple flowers - from borders full of honesty and tubs of pale pink angelique tulips














to the apple trees and ornamental cherry

























and more waiting to flower soon - clematis and lilacs




Monday 6 May 2013

Picked this week - 5th May 2013

Baby leaves of bordeaux spinach and little gem lettuce



 It's been a week of leaves. Salad sorts - lettuce, spinach, land cress, mustards -
mixed mustards, sioux and clarion lettuce, land cress




- and Brassica sorts -  spring cabbage and brussels starting to bolt so pulled and eaten as 'spring greens'



















More radishes ready to pull - though I should have set a LOT more than I have.



And the first rhubarb!! 

Friday 3 May 2013

May vegetables and fruit


Everything's coming along in leaps and bounds at the moment.

With warmer days - and nights - I decided to plan out the blue-podded peas












and some lettuce and spinach seedlings



 though I still ave lots of things growing on either in the greenhouse or out in the sun - brassicas, peas and beans mostly with some flowers thrown in.







the warm weather is causing the land cress to flower early though - soon this patch will be bright yellow









there's blossom everywhere - on currants, apple and I'm hoping there'll be some soon on the greenhouse vine









































and most importantly we're starting to harvest new spring crops - rhubarb from the allotment and radishes from the greenhouses










May flowers



May has started with the most glorious weather and a garden full of flowers. Lots of early ones - daffodils and forsythia - are still around but later ones  - tulips and honesty - are catching up.
tulips and forget-me-nots

dog violets under the peach tree

appeldoorn tulips

pretty and productive - daffodils and rhubarb


one of the recent 'rescue' polyanthus settling in