Garden 2012 no 14

A brief look around the garden.
After my weekend away the first thing I did was to admire the garden. Every time I leave my house the first thing I do when I return is to check the pond. I’m not sure why I’ve developed this habit, or what I expect to see, but it’s always the first thing I do. This time I checked the pond and found far fewer tadpoles than I expected. Before I left for the weekend lots of them had legs, now I’m thinking a whole bunch of them grew more legs and felt brave enough to hop out of the pond and explore. Guess I won’t be seeing a lot of them until next year when they should return to spawn.
Having stood over the pond, I then took a good look around the garden. Suddenly every thing is in bloom. My garden has been blooming for a while, but not like this. Despite the weather, summer is now officially in residence in my garden. In fact the rain seems to have encouraged every thing to grow more. And that includes the food. My latest batch of radishes and lettuce are now ready to eat and there were more strawberries waiting for me.

Rain, Rain, Rain, etc etc etc.................................

OK so now I'm behaving true to sterio-type and (yet again) talking about the weather. We have just had two days of glorious sunshine where I managed to do most things that needed doing in the garden. By yesterday evening the ground had dried to the point where the new plants needed a water and a feed and I almost emptied the water butt doing this. Today; it is raining, its not just persistent rain, its heavy rain, I can't believe so much rain has fallen in my garden in such a short time. I've been out twice today in this rain to empty my assorted buckets into my rapidly filling water butt. Those new plants, lovingly planted, watered and fed yesterday almost floated away today. While I was out there I checked on my pond. My poor tadpoles were being washed over the side, I took three whole buckets of water from the pond to make it safe for the tadpoles and as the rain shows no sigh in stopping any time soon, I'm off to check again. This is the most bizarre weather pattern I've ever know in any summer.

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.

Garden 2012 no 9

Garden 2012 no 9

My cactus is flowering AGAIN, this is the first time it has EVER flowered twice in one year.

I think there was torrential rain for the whole of the three weeks I was away. Wetlands are a precious natural environment but not one I  expected to find in my garden.
By the time I arrived home, the water barrel was actually overflowing,

 my early potatoes had black and damaged leaves,

some of the pots were more suitable for aquatic life than seedlings

and the geraniums, which I grow as a pest deterrent and had put out  the day before I left, looked dead.

But on the plus side, the pond is doing well. There are tadpoles a plenty

and mother frog can be seen sitting at the bottom of the pond keeping an eye on things.

The wild area behind the pond has thrived in the wet weather. This is the area I intend to cultivate and use for more veg plus raspberry canes. Raspberry is the only soft fruit I don’t have and I’m running out of space which is why I’m reclaiming this little bit of land. I’m going to wait until all the bulbs have finished and relocate them before I dig this small corner of the garden. I love the way it’s so wild and does its own thing, but I need the space.

Not every thing suffered in the rain, the radishes are great,

delicious in fact and all the vegetables seem to be doing well.

The rosemary is in bloom,

you can smell it as soon as you enter the garden,

and the strawberry plants already have lots of flowers.

This plant, which I think is a Heuchera, is bigger brighter and all together better than when I left.

I missed most of these little guys ( fritillaria)

but looks like I’m in time for these  bigger guys (Allium).
In fact most of the spring flowers seem to be doing well,

some of the bluebells are out already,

the first forgetmenots have appeared, and the

primroses are still flowering. The London Pride is looks better already than it did during the whole of last year.

When I took this the honey bee was happily gathering pollen, it wasn’t until I saw it on the computer that I realised she had taken off and was heading for the next available pollen when I clicked.

Now all I need is a couple of dry hours over the weekend to sort those waterlogged pots and put some more bark around my soft fruit canes.