Summertime ~~~ and the snails think it's easy!

Gentle Reader ~~~ Summer is now a few days old and Wimbledon is upon us again; I make no secret that I am relieved, for I would rather watch proverbial paint dry than watch the World Cup these days {remember, this is a one time 'wouldn't miss a game' 'dyed in the wool' soccer fan speaking, but these days Wimbledon, with strawberries and cream, and Pimm's or champagne is more for me}

We are basking each day in glorious, gentle, warm sunshine, tempered by {slightly irritating} stiff breezes which are whizzing and whipping things around the garden, and as I sit here I can hear the stiff rustling of trees full of dry leaves that are calling for rain.  The winds make it comfortable if you do not like the scorching, baking~hot days, but towards the end of this week there is a low pressure system currently journeying across the Atlantic towards Britain, bringing with it predicted thunderstorms and a lot of much needed rain, but also a substantial unseasonable dip in temperatures too.  Just as I have planted things out ~~~ I guess that means I am to blame?

Over the weekend I was given two tomato plants!  What a lovely thing to receive.  They already have fruit, and were in desperate need of potting on, so I cut open a grow bag {which will give feed for up to six weeks} and planted them, giving them good staking too, to keep them upright and sturdy against the winds while they settle in and put out new roots.  I put one on each end, and being the constantly thrifty person that I am I put a catch crop of mixed leaves that I brought on from seed a few weeks ago, I think it was May 26th I sowed them in a tray of cells.

Here are my two tomato plants with the catch crop of leaves in the middle ~~~

and the mixed leaves, which in a couple of weeks will be cutting and cropping for about six weeks into August ~~~

I think it was about June 2nd I sowed my soaked runner bean seeds and two germinated in the direct bin sowing, four in the cells, so yesterday afternoon I potted the cell grown ones in with the bin grown ones ~~~ the bin is wrapped with double layered bubble wrap to try and compensate for the wind chill factor ~~~

So, you can imagine my utter horror this very morning when I came out to four plants eaten {by something, probably slugs} overnight down to almost all but the growing tip {so that is something to be thankful for!} and two relatively intact plants ~~~ Garden Emergency Services to the rescue immediately!  I cut the bottoms off my stash of 2 litre water bottles and they are now placed securely over each individual plant in the hopes they will recover {as I said, the growing tips are still intact} very soon ~~~ I raised the bubble wrap blanket a little higher too, giving more protection and hopefully keep them better insulated to help them recover ~~~

Remember these guys?  Such pretty, but voracious devourers of my mullein {verbascum} plants?  Well, another horror story!  My lovely dwarf pink verbascum {below} has hardly any leaves and all the new flower buds are almost all eaten.  I came out to find the plant covered in these white, black, and yellow caterpillars merrily munching their way through all the juicy leaves and tasty buds ~~~ what to do now?  I cannot kill anything {I think the caterpillars, slugs, and snails all know this} nor do I use pesticides, so ~~~

 

 

I picked them off, one by one, and put them all down on the path hoping they would move on to some other garden ~~~ no sooner done than Mrs Blackbird arrived and promptly started to scoop up the offending bugs in her beak to flit off with a tasty feed for her hungry brood of chicks!  We helped each other out! ~~~

This is one corner of my garden, with a thousand shades of green ~~~ the rosemary {almost out of shot on the top left} I bought in 1995 and it moved house with me three times!  I have taken many cuttings over the years.  The oregano I bought at the same time and that has grown and seeded everywhere ~~~ it is in nooks and crannies, growing among the paving stones as it would in it's native Mediterranean habitat, and I use it in small tussie mussies along with other small, suitable flowers and foliage plants to give to friends.  See the lavender spikes pushing up in between the green?  I love to let things mingle and mix like this, softening each other and complimenting other plants ~~~

My sage is in full flower ~~~ beautiful, purple spikes on one of my favourite herbs {I love roasted sage leaves!}

Now, earlier in the year I said there would be departures, so, Gentle Reader, this is my first foray into sharing a simple recipe.  As a vegetarian I eat eggs, and I have a supply of lovely, fresh, organic, free range eggs available to me.  I do so long to have hens of my own, one day I will but for now I have to buy them.  Here is my recipe for a very simple egg salad ~~~ it is what this gardener loves to eat!  All measures are approximate and you can adjust everything according to your preference ~~~

First, hard boil four eggs ~~~

Peel them, and while still hot ~~~

Crush them in a ricer ~~~

This gives a really fine texture without any mashing around with a fork and stops them from going too mushy as they might in a processor ~~~

Working quickly, while the eggs are still warm, add 1oz unsalted butter, 1/2 oz butter spread {such as Flora or Utterly Butterly} 1 tablesp Heinz Salad Cream, season to taste with salt and pepper {I like lots of pepper as you can see, and I use Steenbergs Organic Four colour peppercorn mix }

Blend it all together and chill until ready to use.  It will keep overnight if you wish.  I love it on thick slices of home made bread and butter as an open sandwich, with a small salad of tomatoes and onions ~~~ or piled into lettuce leaf 'dishes' ~~~ Cos or Little Gem work well, I've even used it to fill cherry tomatoes ~~~

There, that wasn't so bad, was it?  How did I do?  Who knows, maybe next time I'll do cake! ~~~ of course, you can do more and adjust everything accordingly!  I've made it with finely chopped celery and onion too ~~~ but very finely chopped, and about a tablespoon of each ~~~ I hate to overpower the delicious organic eggs ~~~

Would you like to see some flowers now?  I thought you might, so here we are ~~~

I bought these Argyranthemums and crimson, highly scented dianthus in the local independent plant centre.  I will be potting up tomorrow ~~~

Can you imagine the fragrance from this David Austin rambling rose Frances E Lester?  It greets me every morning as I awake, for it is planted very near my bedroom window and the fragrance flood fills the cottage all Summer long ~~~ as well as the garden! ~~~ it is totally intoxicating ~~~

A pink osteospermum with a tiny, seeded grass ~~~

My dwarf clematis is not doing very well this year, hardly any flowers, they are much smaller than last year's flowering, which was quite magnificent.  They are also much more grey and the stripe is more defined I think. I am wondering if this is some sort of balance, after last year's all out effort ~~~

The herb Feverfew {in the background} is growing madly and I'm sure there will be much weeding and transplanting of seedlings next Spring, for it is prolific ~~~

Buttercups and Daisies are full the lawn ~~~ I have not mowed for three weeks, can't you tell?  I will be doing this job, which I really do not like, tomorrow evening as it is long overdue and with rain coming in towards the end of the week it is a job that needs to be out of the way ~~~

Here is a tiny jewel of a treat ~~~ an alpine strawberry ~~~ I have many hundreds of these plants that I have allowed to run through the borders as they please, for they are a great ground cover and weed suppressor and a tasty treat for the gardener going about her jobs, to find a tiny red morsel of sweet delight ~~~

The raspberries are nearly ready, in fact I picked my first one today and promptly ate it, forgetting to take a photograph to share ~~~ it was slightly under~ripe, but I could not help myself!  The few blackcurrants that have come this year may yield enough for one pie, which saddens me that there will not be jam for the Winter, for I value it for it's Vitamin C content as it makes a delicious warming and comforting drink with lemon and whisky if I catch a cold.  The gooseberries, too, are very nearly ready, almost ripe enough to pick so I shall check them daily now.  Things are moving as Summer days are with us, but remember that ~~~

 ~~~A Gardener's Work Is Never Done~~~

 

 

Thickly and Quickly

Gentle Reader, as the garden grows, so does the inspiration for new posts.  Despite the cold, wet start, the garden is now growing like a proverbial weed and each new morning brings something new to look at, observe, and consider.  Indeed, I do not know which way to turn with my camera or my thoughts!

Fruits are starting to form, like these tiny apples~

blackcurrants~

and gooseberries~

Soon I will be picking fruit daily.  What can be better than fresh picked strawberries and raspberries for my breakfast, sun~ripened and warm, from berry patch to breakfast bowl in moments; blackcurrants for jam, pies, crumbles, and cordials; gooseberry crumble (a favourite with custard); and tay berries for jelly.  The surplus will be frozen for the winter months ahead, a steady supply of summer sunshine and vitamins.

My herbs are growing rapidly, and already some seeds are setting like this Sweet Cicely, I do so like the name, it is delightfully old fashioned, pictured here growing through my vigorous rosemary~

two types of oregano, green and variegated~

and this is the Moroccan mint I found, languishing in a tiny pot, which I potted up and is now producing tiny shoots from the base~

I use a lot of fresh herbs in my cooking, and dry them for a supply over winter when, although they are still in leaf, the oils are not present for sufficient flavour.

There is weeding and digging to be done (they are always on the list of jobs) and a lawn to be mowed this week. A Gardener's Work is Never Done! Seeds are waiting to be planted, and today I sowed some beetroot, mixed leaves, broad beans, courgettes, curly kale, and Swiss chard in pots to plant out if the weather holds.

Much of my vegetable plot is under weed killing cover ~ old, punctured inflatable mattresses to be precise.  Rather than confine them to landfill, I am recycling them to help suffocate the weeds.  It is not a pretty sight, weighted down by old Land Rover wheels, and it is a lengthy process, but I refuse to resort to chemicals unless absolutely necessary.  I have taken photographs, and I will share these when I am ready to remove the covers, which will be a blog entry in itself.  I pulled them back a few weeks back and although working the job still has some way before they can be removed for cultivation so I am not planning on using it this year.  There are some small spaces around the edges that I hope to use though.  More on this later.

Part of my vegetable plot is being used as a holding area for flowers and shrubs until the relevant areas of the garden are ready to receive them.  I put these plants there last summer, not planning to leave them there so long, but I procrastinated over what I wanted to do with the rest of the garden, so here they remain.  They are thriving and offering good weed suppression that I did not expect!  This gives me useful information I need to remember, as I have learned something new, that osteospermums not only do well in my garden but are good weed suppressants~

Other plants that seem to do this are oregano, Alchemilla Mollis, self~heal, foxgloves, and oriental poppies. You can hardly put a pin between them!  No room for weeds to grow here!

One task connected with the edible garden is storing and consuming the produce.  I used to only grow what I could eat directly from plot to plate, but one year I had a glut of courgettes (zucchini) and even after giving away many fruits I still had masses left.  I stumbled upon a wonderful book, "Jams, Preserves, and Edible Gifts Paston" by Sara Paston~Williams for The National Trust which contained a recipe for Courgette Chutney.  I bought it, made my first batch and have never looked back.  Now, I freeze my freshly picked fruits and make small, regular batches of jams, jellies, and preserves throughout the winter months.  I also use the defrosted fruits with home made yogurt for breakfast, or in delicious pies and crumbles for warming winter puddings.  No wonder I gain weight in the winter!

So, one of the jobs I must do is empty the freezer of all of last year's fruit that is still left and turn it into jam.  This week, I found 3lbs of raspberries, so raspberry jam is made~

As the blackcurrants will be the first to ripen and generally need picking in mid~July I must make jam and crumbles from the remaining 12lbs I have in the freezer!  They do crop very well indeed.

I have a busy time over the next few weeks!  There will, I am certain, be many entries here to look for as I spend my days between the garden and the kitchen.

Pansies, Seedlings, and Watering Cans

Gentle Reader, time flies when the weather is good, and finally we are seeing some very pleasant weather indeed.  In fact, it is so good now that I must water by hand on a regular basis.  Thirsty pots are hard work if you want your plants to thrive.  The water barrel is nearly dry, so I am now using my garden tap, sparingly of course!

Despite the good weather, I have been unable to do much in the garden this week due to unavoidable commitments and distractions, not even much needed weeding or mowing the lawn.  Although the weather is good, the temperatures are still only hovering around 60℉ in the day, night time is still quite chilly, and the wind is often keen.  I have not taken the ground temperature, but I am certain it is not very warm.  I shall sow some basic salad vegetables like mixed leaves, beetroot, salad onions, and radish (all of which are not too fussy over a chilly night) and in a week I might plant some courgette (zucchini) and squash directly into the ground.  I have planted both this late and found that, although they do not crop quite as well as when planted early, there will be some fruits and something is better than nothing.  It will get me back into the swing of things.

Can it really be only a week since those strawberry plants arrived?  I am sure you remember I took care of them immediately upon their arrival, and here they are after planting up last Saturday afternoon ~

Here is a picture of them today, just six days on, and you can see healthy new leaves and some flower buds too . . this looks promising and is exciting indeed!

I am giving them small amounts of water twice a day, rather than one daily deluge.  I think this keeps the soil more moist around the roots and stops them drying out.  Seeing the two images together is encouraging.

My pretty pansies are a delight.  They are going from strength to strength, flowering well, and putting on quite vigorous leaf growth too.  I love their little faces so!  Do you remember this one?  I showed it to you a few weeks ago because the flower was huge (about four inches across) and dwarfed the pansy plant which hid behind the bloom.  There is a lot of soil visible in the pot too ~

Just look at them now! This is the same plant (centre) as above and is now much bigger and the plant trough is filling out fast, as are the other pots of pansies.  There is hardly any soil showing and I think that very soon the plants will be spilling over the edges ~

The purple and white combinations look soothing and calming, but I also like the sherberty colours of this orange and yellow with the sparkling white ~

and the mix of complimentary yellow and purple sing out with a pop of colour.
I like to mix colours, but what are your favourite combinations?

Gentle Reader, do you recall at the end of May I planted up some calendula seeds? For the last few days I've been watching them germinate into strong looking seedlings.  If the gentle sun keeps warming them each day and I am careful watering them, then I think I will be potting them up into bigger modules very soon.  I know they are way behind because our spring was so cold (one of the coldest on record) but they will give some bright colour through into Autumn with a little luck.

I hope they will look as pretty and colourful as the ones on the packet!

The Dill seeds have also germinated.  They are such tiny, fragile, wispy looking little seedlings, quite different from the sturdy calendula.  They do not like their roots disturbed so this will be a challenge when they are big enough to pot on.  I have an idea, and I will let you know nearer the time what my plan is.  So far, though, there isn't a sign of anything in the Garlic Chives pot or the runner beans.  I wonder how long they take to germinate?

The sun is warm now, and everything is slowly catching up.  It is strange, though, to have camellias on both my bushes in June when they are late winter flowering.  I need to prune them as they are getting too big but do not know what effect it will have doing it so late.  I do know that it will drastically impact on the amount of flowers next year, as the buds form immediately after flowering the previous year so any pruning will remove next year's potential flowers.

Today, I went out to water in the cool of the early morning, before the sun came up over the trees behind the cottage and noticed that the Papaver Orientalis (oriental poppies) are full of big buds.  I love poppies of all kinds, and these are big, blousy, and colourful, giving a showy splash of colour.  They seem to do well in my garden, thriving and giving good, weed suppressing ground cover, so this is a plant I must consider to increase in variety soon. 

Imagine my complete surprise, just a couple of hours later, to be walking past the "Coral Sea" to discover, to my pure delight, that one of the buds burst open giving the most magical treat for me to see.  Here are some photos of this beautiful poppy, one of my favourites.

See the delicate, tissue~papery layers of pretty petals?

Inside hides the downy, powdery~soft pollen and the rich, darkness contrasting in a perfect mix with the delicate peachy pink petals ~

Here, the single bloom set against the distant backdrop of purple Aquilegia, and a pop of acid yellow greenery ~

The forecast for the weekend is good, so I hope to get some digging done without the distraction of weekday chores.  Worryingly, the forecast for the following week is not looking so good so we will see what it brings.  Rain would be a blessing for the soft fruits, and for the garden in general, for watering is long and heavy work, but I do enjoy it all the same.  I let my mind drift into a state of peaceful being while showering the water over the plot, and it is a very relaxing thing to do as the sun sets on another day.

In a perfect world the weather would be dry in the day with cool and comfortable mornings, gently warming sun would bathe the garden in the afternoon, the balmy evening light would dance across the garden heralding dusk, and nourishing rain would fall in the night saving the heavy work of lugging watering cans!

Bits and Bobs and Other Jobs

Gentle Reader, Welcome!  Even when there isn't anything big going on, like digging (ugh!) there are always plenty of bits, bobs, and odd jobs to get on with in the garden.  Over the last few days the weather, generally, has been quite kind and although I haven't felt like doing any heavy digging, I've been getting on with some of those bits, bobs, and odd jobs.

It is Spring Bank Holiday this weekend (Memorial Day in America) and by tradition this is the BIG weekend for gardeners in the United Kingdom to make a start on readying their gardens for Summer.  The garden centres and big D.I.Y. conglomerates ready themselves for the biggest garden supplies trading week of the year.  Millions of bedding plants, pots, tools, compost, all manner of garden sundries, and the odd shed or two will be flying off their shelves, and good weather is imperative to get this off to a good start.  Sadly, this year, the weather is still stuck in a rut with below average temperatures across most of the UK, strong winds and rain are forecast for tomorrow (Bank Holiday Monday) and the week ahead does not promise any improvement.  Normally, by this time, I have already got some salad crops ready to pick, and my courgettes would be getting ready to plant out in the ground.  This year nothing is ready.  It is worrying.  If things don't pick up soon this could be the second year I don't grow very much.   I reckon we are about a month behind on the weather.

On I plod, and here are some of the jobs I got up to over the last few days, with some random images of things growing in my garden.

A few weeks ago over 100 foxglove seedlings arrived at my cottage and I had to pot them all up into individual modules.  This is what they looked like yesterday, and the task of potting them up into bigger pots, around four inches, began.

These are the first nineteen, potted on and in a large tray of water having a good drink to help them settle into their new pots.  This is where they will stay now until they are planted out directly into the soil in about two months, depending on how quickly they grow.  They will not flower this summer, being biennial, and I am anxious to see what colours they are, so I must be patient!

I bought some new seeds, Calendula to give some bright, annual colour, a lovely splash of oranges and yellows to dot around the borders, and a packet of Garlic Chives because I don't have any of these and they are quite delicious, and a packet of Dill as I do not have any of that and it is one of my favourite herbs, to eat, to look at, and to photograph.

I found a packet of Runner Beans called "Scarlet Emperor" and planted them up in a large dustbin that has a split in the side.  I filled it with compost and I planted a dozen seeds using my trusty dibber to guide me to the correct depth of two inches for each seed.  When the seeds germinate and there are tiny plants starting to push their heads above the compost I will show you a picture. 

A dibber is a very useful tool.  Mine is made of wood, I love the feel of wood in my hand as I garden.  It is marked, you can see the rings, in increments of one inch and by pushing it into the freshly tilled soil you can make a hole of exactly the right depth to sow your seeds.  Brilliant!

There are flowers on the Alpine (miniature) strawberry plants.  These make excellent ground cover, and I let them run almost where ever they want.  Moving a leaf aside I often find a tiny, sun~ripened, sweet, warm fruit, picked fresh they are a real treat for the gardener at work.  They produce very tiny fruit that make an attractive garnish for a summer berry dessert, added to a Pimm's cup, or to decorate a pretty cake.

The apple tree is full of pristine, snow white blossoms.  I do not think I have ever seen so many blossoms on the tree.  Now all we need are the pollinating bees to come and there will be apples, crisp, sun kissed apples, freshly picked, and juicy on a warm Autumn afternoon.

Isn't this a sight to see?  It looks quite bridal, don't you think?  Thinning the apples at each cluster will be quite some job this year if they all set fruit.

Here is the pot of Alchemilla Mollis I showed you a few days ago, heavy with dew, sharing space with the glaucous leaf of a Pasque flower.  It is growing so quickly, as Alchemilla often does, so soon I must separate them out.

I love the daisy~like Osteospermums.  A native of South Africa, they seem to thrive in our British climate.  This surprises me, for I think of South Africa as being warm, but apparently it can be sharply cold as well!  I am happy, for these bright blooms give splendid drifts of colours, pink, purple, white, and yellow across the borders.  The centres are all so different too from fuzzy velvet to shiny satin textures.  I can only imagine what they must look like in their native home, growing wild.

Gentle Reader, the forecast for the week ahead is unsettled at best.  The lawn needs mowing!  There is heavy rain for tomorrow, so a typical forecast for Bank Holiday, with winds of 20 mph, with gusts of 40 mph and more.  Oh dear!  I think we might have seen the last of the apple blossom looking so magnificent, and this news could really impact on the fruit, as there are far fewer bees than usual and without the beautiful blossom to attract them the pollination will not happen. 

We will wait and see.  My water barrel will be filled with freshly falling rain flowing from my roof.  I have brought all the tender plants and trays of fresh~sewn seeds indoors for a day or two, until the heaviest of the rain and the wildest of the winds have passed to protect their leaves and roots, and stop the seeds washing away as can easily happen in torrential downpours.  My next entry might be a few days away, for there is little I can do in these conditions except hope it will pass by quickly.  Everything will be watered and refreshed, and I hope for warmer days to speed the growing of my plants and seeds.

I will leave you on a cheery note, a blackbird often gives me company in the garden as he seeks out fresh worms and bugs for his hungry brood.  Today, I was delighted with his precious song, so here he is for you.