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

Monday 30 June 2014

Picked this week - 29th June 2014

A busy busy week - just harvesting!


Lots of lettuce....












Lots of peas.....
















Two tiny cauliflowers








the ever bizarre crystal lemon cucumber










and lots of fruit - raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, black and red currants, cherries (though this is ALL of the crop) and gooseberries from my parents.
















Wednesday 25 June 2014

Picked this week - 22nd June 2014

Plenty of mixed fruit - enough strawberries to add them to breakfast every day plus a few left over to dry,some blackcurrants and even cherries!














A second, rather small, cucumber to go with the salad leaves from the garden


The first of the potatoes













peas

and broad beans

Monday 23 June 2014

Midsummer veg patch

The garden veg patch is more of a fruit patch right now - apples, tomatoes,blueberries and grapes are swelling; red and black currants ripening,






























In the small veg patches, plants are struggling against slug and snail attack but the mangetout peas and decorative yellow and purple beans are just about surviving

a couple of lettuce which have survived - possibly by being hidden under a winter cabbage!






spinach planted by the purple beans to entice slugs and snails away

one solitary winter cabbage from a row I set but which got eaten by something. 

Sunday 22 June 2014

Midsummer Flowers


Midsummer's day has been dry and warm, not as hot as recent days and with threatening clouds this afternoon - rain would have been nice in a way as a lot of the garden is starting to look dry.
Ideally it's a time to sit out in the garden, enjoy the flowers and their scent - if only I had time! I did at least manage to nip out and take photos..... though not brilliant ones as they're off the phone.























The 'back of the garden' shady spot with pink and blue geraniums


Foxgloves still towering over the other flowers


























Lavender trying to meet over the path


Sweet Williams (left) and feverfew at the bottom of the garden path

Saturday 21 June 2014

To the rescue again

We were actually only supposed to be picking up a bag of compost but when I saw these cottage pinks on the dead-plant reduced rack, I couldn't leave them behind. I've been looking for some for a while, as they're a typical cottage garden plant they'll fit right in in my garden,but the price has been putting me off and I couldn't find seed for the right sort of 'pinks'. For the reduced rack, both plants are looking well and should grow - unfortunately the plant on the right lost a lot of flowers on the way home!

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Picked this week - 15th June 2014

I've had a bust time this week in the garden and at the allotment just picking and harvesting!
 Most days my lunch-time salad leaves have come from the garden with some spinach from the allotment.
It's been a good week for radishes - in a variety of colours - and some over-wintered spring onions







more rhubarb

and lots and lots of strawberries that I'm having to find new ways to eat up!


















..and a lot of new season crops - a small cucumber





courgette





peas from the allotment






and mangetout peas from the garden





 broad beans





and a vase full of 'weeds'