Better weather (for a bit anyway)

Well, for the first time in a few weeks I had a decent day of weather in the garden, so there was lots to catch up on but as always before I begin here is this weeks photo from the potting shed.

Apologies for the poor quality but as before this camera doesn't like bright sunlight - I really must buy a polarising filter for the lens.
So, what happened this week. Well, Richard and Sally have been busy bees - the gravel floor is now in the greenhouse and there is also gravel on the steps down to the greenhouse - Sally is not too convinced about the latter but I think after it gets washed by the rain and when the alchemilla, lavender and Nepeta all start to bush out over the edges it will look just fine - there's too much of a contrast between the light colour of the gravel and the dark soil at the moment.

In the greenhouse, the tomatoes have fairly got a shift on with the warm weather recently and the first fruits have now formed. The three aubergines in 5 litre pots are flowering, the cucumber Pepita is producing baby fruits like a plant possessed, the chard is now ready to harvest for the colourful stems as well as for the leaves and the peppers are starting to bush up a bit, albeit still quite slowly.

Elsewhere on the veg front, I dug up some new potatoes (Charlotte and Belle De Fontenay). These are still quite small (though definitely edible size) but are all nice and clean. The runners are starting to climb quite vigourously and have produced their first flowers, the Crimson flowered broad beans are now setting their beans, the beetroot is almost at edible baby beet size, and the onions are looking good - starting to bulb up well and the foliage is still strong.

On the brassica front, the PSB plants that were ravaged by flying rats and are now residing under a net have all produced new growth from the centres so they should come okay, and the leeks are settling in well.

In the borders, the sweet peas are stll clambering up their supports and the first blooms have just opened, the campanula growing in clumps along the south facing wall is flowering

The Alastromeria which last year had a lot of gren growth and absolutely no flowers was divided into clumps and planted throuhgout the borders is now flowering quite happily - every clump bar one has flowers this year

And the giant rambler rose is flowering - it looks quite spectacular in full bloom -I did take a couple of pics but due to the cameras dislike of bright conditions, they were very indistinct, so hopefully next week I'll get a better photo that will show this in it's full glory.

Of the three redcurrant bushes that we planted last year, two now have berries and one does not. It should be mentioned that all three bushes are alledgedly the same variety but all three have very different growth habits, so I think we'll take cuttings from the best one this year to multiply the numbers.

What else did I get done? I managed to finally get the section clearad by the digger sprayed off with Glyphostae again, so hopefully this will help eliminate a lot of the weeds before I can start working the ground properly.

I also got up on the south facing wall and cut back the new growth on the two cherry trees and also on the big rambling rose I mentioned earlier. I continued to weed the border against the wall, removing two shrub roses which have failed to deliver, and ran my Wolf Soil Miller over the lower border, trying to avoid as many of the self seeded lupins as possible. This really does make the borders look well, especially when there is still a fair bit of bare ground on show.

I also sowed some Florence Fennel and another batch of lettuce - Red Iceberg this time.

I'm sure there was more but my brain isn't working - Maggie and the girls have been at Embo this week and I've been going over in the evenings, and so far I have had about 14 hours sleep in the last four nights -I don't know if it's the sea air but I have been waking up between 4am and 5 am every morning. I even went out to watch the sunrise this morning!

Anyway, catch you all next week, when things should have returned to normal and the blog will be updated in a more timely fashion.