Nearly Summer....

Summer's on the way with huge floppy oriental poppies...

..self-set aquilegias in every shade of pink, rose, purple and white...

...huge peonies just opening..

The flower beds are edged in a frill of London Pride

and hiding under the taller plants are sweetly scented lily of the valley







There's always one unseasonal flower though - a really early flowering kaffir lily

What a difference a day makes...

Tuesday - wild and wet with heavy rain, hail and the garden path turning into a stream

Wednesday - blue skies and blossom

Picked this week - 11th May 2014

Rain and other things stopped me getting to the allotment this week. Hubby went to dig ground for potatoes but didn't bring any produce back! Fortunately I'm starting to have salad crops ready at home - some radishes which I'm pulling quite small for two reasons; I've sown the seed too closely, and I hoped they'd be grown and out before I wanted to plant peas in the same space but they aren't.

Lots of strange mustard salad leaves - nice and spicy to go with blander green lettuce.  I've been picking lettuce as 'baby leaves' and had hoped to grow some on for larger plants - unfortunately the slugs took too much of a liking to them and everything I planted out was eaten!

Willow weaving

I've been trying to make my own willow 'wigwams' using pussy willow from the garden. Full write up of it on my HomePage blog

A Vase of Weeds

No matter what I do, some plants always insist on growing in the wrong places 

and sometimes they're beautiful flowers!

So instead of just throwing my 'weeds' in the compost bin, I've brought them inside.

Allotment helper

We're often joined at the allotment by a robin - presumably the same one each time. He sits and sings almost within arm's reach but generally flies off when I get the camera out.

Here he is at last though - not brilliant photos as they're taken on my phone.

Picked this week - 4th May 2014

Another busy week, digging,planting and picking at the allotment.
This time I forgot to take a bag to bring the veg home in, so managed with a bucket - and even included some aquilegias which were growing as 'weeds'.









At the bottom of the bucket - the over-wintering swedes.












Then a row of leeks I cleared out

Then some rhubarb

and a bag of spinach.

Earlier in the week, I lifted the last winter cabbage - and a tiny cauliflower

and from the garden, a couple of spring onions