In my garden…..
….there’s suddenly so much to eat! Yellow and green courgettes threatening to grow into marrows every time I look, dark purple beans and lots of broad beans. New potatoes and beetroot are reaching gigantic proportions. Plenty of salad too.
In my garden there’s been ten days of neglect. This is my only excuse:
We had a wonderful time staying in our friend’s 1960s beach chalet on the Lyn peninsula in Wales (more of this to follow in the next blog post) and when we returned the garden had gone crazy. Mother Hubbard squash had turned into triffids, the calendula were intent on conquering the garden and purple orach was erupting everywhere:
In my garden this month I’ve been spending a few evenings since we returned attempting to tame a few things. Although I do love my crazy mix of flowers and veggies and and can’t resist the prettiness created completely accidentally by self-seeders that I can’t bring myself to pull up:
The bees and butterflies seem to be loving both the planned and accidental combinations too, I can’t believe how many I’ve come back to:
Of course some of the visitors aren’t as welcome:
Some of the broad beans are being attacked, others are perfectly healthy. I’m hoping my blocks of different varieties in different spots around the garden will help to ensure I have lovely beans for a while longer as I’m very partial to them in pasta and on bruschetta. I’m on daily caterpillar hunts in an effort to save my brassicas too and have to keep reminding myself that this happens every year and they always somehow survive the cabbage whites.
In my garden this month…
there’s a bald courgette. I’d been talking about de-heading flowers with Ruby. She was horrified at the jungle that had erupted around the bean that she’s very proud of (planrted at school) and I said that she could use her scissors to trim back her purple orache and snip the heads off a few calendula. Happily getting on with my own trimming, I suddenly noticed that her courgette plant was a tad sorry for itself.
My instructions were obviously not quite detailed enough. Oh well, at least we have plenty of other courgettes. It does make me smile though whenever I stumble upon the poor bald courgette plant. I may kid myself that I’m exerting some sort of control in the garden but as I look at the self-seeded calendula spreading across yet another area, view the tangles of weeds, and see the results of my daughter’s confident snipping, it’s quite evident that it’s not me who’s the boss out here!
In my garden this month….
….there’s been lots of playing in the treehouse and around the new paths and rustic wigwams. The treehouse still needs a roof and sides, the runner beans still have to complete their growth up the arches that curve over the paths but it doesn’t seem to be bothering Ruby and friends who are getting on with enjoying it all. Grown-ups have even been invited to sample the luke-warm, very murky mint tea that’s been made up in the tree-house. Not an activity I’d recommend unless you have an incredible immune system.
The children are reminding me that this is definitely the month to make time to enjoy it all. I hope I can manage to stay shoddy in my gardening, enjoy the imperfect chaos and find time to leave my tools like this:
Maybe on these lovely hot summer days, I should even take a tip off Mog:
Having really enjoyed having a look at other people’s gardens around the world, I’d love to include this in Lizzie Moult’s lovely garden share collective.
Such beautiful ‘imperfect chaos’ I just love it! What a wonderful place for Ruby and friends to play in, I love the tree house! Good to see that Ruby has inherited her Mum’s green fingers, great to have some willing help in the garden. Looking forward to reading all about your Welsh holiday
Thank you! I love it up in the treehouse myself actually – but am still hankering after your lovely hut! Would love you to come and see our chaos.
So looking forward to a visit! I forgot to give you that Magic Apple tree book when you came here and I have your bottle to return (contents disappeared very swiftly), must sort it out soon! x
Let me know any time you can make it here – loved my visit to yours, came back so inspired. Ours is on a lot smaller scale though, messier too!
It all looks quite wonderful in spite of the wildness, or maybe because of the wildness 😉
Thank you, I am loving the garden at the moment but it is a bit wild.
What a beautiful garden to come home too, and so much colour – from the flowers, vegetables and the visiting butterflies.
Beautiful – it takes me back to viewing it all at child’s eye height – we spent the 6 weeks summer holidays in the garden…picking the odd leaf or pea pod, having imaginary adventures…
Sounds lovely and it’s how I remember summer hols as a child too – climbing apple trees, making dens. Would’ve loved a tree house like Ruby’s tho – I think Guy would too, probably why he’s made one now!
Love the pretty flowers. Bet the bees do too.
Thank you and yes the bees are partial to them, especially the lavender, nepeta and borage at the moment.
So much colour, I really need to get into planting flowers with my veggies, it looks so stunning and the bee population would love me for it. Those zucchini’s look great especially the golden ones. Are they just called golden zucchini’s? I want to find the seed. We are coming into spring, I might go down to my garden now and spill a few seed packets of flowers. Inspiring – thankyou.
Thank you so much Lizzie – for letting me know about your lovely garden collective too, so enjoying having a look at other gardens. I’m so bad at remembering the names of things I’ve planted or of keeping a record but I think the yellow courgettes were called ‘Goldy’.
Goodness me, what a stunning backyard!! I’d love a bit of colour amongst my greens! I love your yellow zucchini’s, we only get the green ones in Sydney…
Thanks Lisa and the yellow ones do look pretty don’t they – I think the green and yellow together look nice cooked too, or shaved with a potato peeler for a raw salad.
Love your rustic wig wams and the path lined with flowers. You may describe it as chaotic but it looks like a gorgeous place to hang out (and productive!) I love my kids making themselves at home in the garden; you never quite know what you’re going to find
My kids have recently taken over one of my new compost bins…..makes a very cool den apparently!
Love the idea of a compost bin as a den! Surprised Ruby hasn’t thought of that. Thanks so much for your lovely comments, ‘rustic’ is definitely the word though!
I love the informality and flower veg mix. What a wonderful and beautiful garden though shame about the cougettes (doubtless it will recover).
Amazingly that courgette plant is still very productive, seems nothing can stop the courgettes at the moment not even a 5 year old with scissors! Thanks lots for calling my chaos beautiful too.
I too am in love with your garden – such colour and abundance!!
Thank you so much Jeanie, have to say I’m enjoying wandering out and picking dinner at the moment, such a wonderful time of year.
I love the little path through your garden, we’ve also had an influx of zucchini, any favourite recipes?
Thanks Heather. I like feta and courgette pasta with lemon, griddled courgettes with garlic, olive oil and oregano nut also just simply cooked courgettes with a little garlic, salt & olive oil towards the end and a squeeze of lemon. Would love to hear your ideas too.