Garden 2012 no 11

GARDEN 2012 N0 11

It’s Saturday 23 June, and still raining. Woke up this morning and the news said; ‘serious flooding throughout the country’, guess I’m lucky to be free from the floods but we have had serious rain over the last three days. The news went on to say, ‘this could be the worse summer on record’,  ‘COULD BE’?? I feel that’s a little optimistic, as far as I’m concerned it already IS the worse summer on record.

ABOVE, PRIMROSES MID MAY

But it’s not all bad, we have had the odd day or two, even the occasional week, where the weather has been lovely and I’ve been out in the garden.

The first photos were taken mid may, we had some bright sunny days, the skies were blue, the garden was warm and the flowers were in bloom.
The primroses and bluebells covered more ground and flowered for longer than usual, the pond looked especially good last month; I had more blooms in the pond than I have ever had before and the London pride was better brighter and more prolific than last year.

And then a bit of a setback, some local kids were playing in the street and jumping over fences. What ever game it was they were playing involved jumping over fences, climbing on shed roofs and running in and out of gardens. They trampled a corner of my garden and some of my plants were ruined.

I was really upset but when I went out to see what I could salvage, the damage wasn’t as bad as I thought.  We had weeks of rain and I thought I would never get out in the garden again, but when I did eventually get there, I found the rain had stimulated growth and the garden looked like a jungle. I lost a lot of seedlings and small plants, they were washed away but those that were strong enough to withstand the wind and the rain actually benefited and had a growth spurt.
I’m now picking a couple of strawberries every day to eat with my cereal in the mornings,
the beans and onions are looking great and  I’m eating fresh lettuce, radish, nasturtium leaf and assorted herbs every evening.
I’m also getting a regular supply of rhubarb every couple of days.
The spinach took a long time to establish, I thought I had lost it several times but now its looking good.
The potatoes will be ready to pull soon; I hope to get these ‘earlies’ up in time to put another lot of ‘lates’ in.
I’ve replaced quite a few of my herbs this year, I bought new ones but I also cut back the old ones and took fresh cuttings.
I have an established patch of Tansy and Curry Plant; they are doing very well this year, they look quite similar but are very different.

And I have flowers, in no particular order and not highly cultivated but flowers they are.

School finishes next week and (weather allowing) I’ll be out there more often and hopefully get the last little bit dug over ready for another small veg plot next year. I’ve already salvaged a whole load of bulbs from the last tiny area I dug over and I expect to get at least as many again.
Oh...........and I decided I liked this so much, I bought another

But for today……………the weather is awful and even if it wasn’t I’m booked for babysitting. I’ve packed my bag, packed my paints and I’m going to try to get some serious painting done over the weekend. My granddaughter is 11 now and I'm hoping she will amuse herself while I get on with the serious business of painting.