August in the garden -veg

 The veg patch is edged with marigolds - to add colour and to keep greenfly at bay. There's a single lettuce seedling, some very small brussels sprouts, a row of leeks and a couple of cabbage in this bed

with nasturtiums running through them

 rhubarb filling this patch

 small autumn/winter cauliflowers

 and newly planted celery and red cabbage. This is the first year I've managed to grow any celery - but even if it doesn't crop well, its bright green should look good against the cabbage.

 Tomatoes are filling - on the left are 'normal' red ones Moneymaker or Alicante







On the right are yellow Poire Jaune













 Not many grapes this year but they're filling well




 







and nearly forgotten, by the old playhouse, Blauwschokker peas - purple-flowers and green peas inside a purple pod

August in the garden - flowers

August is the time for montbretia flopping over the path,

 for hollyhocks reaching up past the hanging basket

 This year I've a variety of new pinks and carnations - mostly rescue plants from the clearance section at the garden centre. They're looking well so far but I was disappointed to find out that the smaller ones aren't very hardy. I'll need to take some of them inside the greenhouse for winter.

















 This massive blue flower is a platycodon or balloon flower - one of thoe no-effort required plants that I love.

I grew new antirrhinums this year, most of which have turned out a pale lemon with just one red so far.

 The old straggly white rose has had a second flush of flowers.

 Sweet peas are flowering regularly at last. Only two shades on them this year - deep red and lilac. They're grown from last year's seed and it rather seems like only one pod of seeds germinated.















 Dry weather has helped the rudbeckias along - one of the few annual flowers I grow,mainly for their bright high-impact colours.



A lot of veg seems early this year - and so do Michaelmas Daisies! Here's the first of them.

Pumpkins for winter

 After last year's disappointing pumpkin harvest, I'm pleased to see them growing and swelling early this year.

Looking forward to winter stews and chillis with them.

Picked this week - 27th July 2014

the first french beans of the season, a couple of small runner beans and a handful of peas

a small cabbage but it didn't look quite as weird as in this photo

lots of blackberries

I've been eating tomatoes form my parents for the last week or two - now we have some of our own

courgettes and cucumbers - though having missed quite a few days at the allotment the cucumbers have grown a bit too large.

baby sized turnips - part of the thinnings

Autumn already?

It may be only July and really hot but the allotment blackberries are already ripening. Surely that means Autumn can't be far away?

Butterflies and birds

 Since Saturday's torrential rain, the garden seems ful of butterflies, bees and birds. Not all of them would sit still enough to be photographed though....

Buddleia starting to prove a major attraction

even Cabbage Whites look pretty when not eating cabbages

A very squashed-looking baby robin

Trying to pace crops

 It's too easy to go from no veg to a glut - and back again - in days, so this year we're making an effort to spread cropping over a longer period. The first pea row has just about finished, two (not very healthy ones) are still cropping

and more have just been planted out - hopefully this should give us a longer period with fresh peas, rather than having them all cropping in one week and all the fuss of having to be freeze them.

 Same thing with potatoes - last year they all came ready in the same fortnight. No chance of that this year - here's the first early rows being dug ....








...and late ones just coming through. This gamble might not pay off if there's too much damp and blight later in the season but so far it's worked.