Feels like summer

It’s been busy here for the past 4 weeks or so with work being carried out in the house by the trades teams, myself and Mr W.  However, when the house is progressing, the garden always gets a bit neglected and the weeds don’t skip a beat in taking the opportunity to shoot up.

Clematis growing over the wooden arch

 

A way to start the day…

So, were now in the second week of June and the weather is warming up again. One of my favourite ways to start the day is to head out into the front garden, cup of tea in hand and just sit with my face to the sun whilst the birds sing and I chat nonsense to the cats. It’s so peaceful out here and I feel so fortunate to live in such a lovely location. 

Strawberries galore…

Strawberry harvest

As we Bimble on through June, I’m now starting to harvest fruit and veg from the garden regularly.  One thing everyone has noticed (and we have received lots of comments on) are the strawberries.  My little strawberry patch started out at around a one-meter Square last year, however come the spring the strawberry plants covered an area of around 9 square meters which was absolutely covered in runners/new baby plants. So now my strawberry patch is a couple of meters with a few little random offshoots and they have given us an abundance of the sweetest berries this year, honestly. There is a certain smugness that comes with picking a ripe strawberry, from your own garden when it is still slightly warm from the sun and bursting with juice.  There isn’t a supermarket strawberry that comes anywhere close to it. 

Other June Harvests…

 We have been cropping lettuce for the last couple of months (I have a trick to keep lettuces producing leaves for 2-3 months at a time which I will share soon in case you don’t already know the secret!).  On the salad theme, we are also been harvesting our multi-sown radishes (multi-sowing is a great way to maximise your crop if you haven’t heard about it) and some of them have been HUGE (golf ball sized). I actually like radish when it’s bigger like that as I don’t find the so spicy, they seem to mellow as they get bigger. Whilst I have harvested a single baby cucumber and my first ripe cherry tomato today, there are just not enough to make meals from for now.  

Courgettes on the other hand are doing really well and cropping nicely. Last year my courgettes took forever to get going and were a bit of a disaster quite frankly. However, I’m pleased to report that things are definitely looking up this year.  I had two lovely big courgettes today and there are lots more on the way (growing in the raised bed on the right with the nasturtium all over it). I’m always so excited when I can pick my first courgettes and always so sick of them come the end of the summer!!  We make a great family pasta dish which we call “courgetti spaghetti” which is spaghetti in a creamy/cheesy sauce with sautéed onions, courgette and bacon.  It’s so cheap, quick and easy and a great midweek meal that the whole family love. Ill post the recipe soon for those who want to try making it. Courgettes are always so expensive out of season, so this year I hope to be able to sauté and freeze some courgettes so that we can enjoy courgetti spaghetti throughout the winter too.

No broad beans or peas just yet but I’m hoping they will be ready in the next couple of weeks.  Oh, and there are a few spinach plants that I forgot about, which are now doing quite nicely in the shade behind the wall, hanging out with the strawberries.

'Salad' whatever is available from the garden (not the courgettes though!)

Polyculture

I follow some great gardeners online and have noticed that over the past year there is lots of chatter about Polyculture. If you are not familiar with the idea of polyculture, it basically means mixing your plants up which encourages biodiversity and mimics how things grow in nature.  This is kind of what I already do in the kitchen garden as I want to have both flowers and food to pick, so I have always a mixture of plants, however this year, instead of planting rows of each veg or plant variety, I am trying to grow in clumps and mixing it up a bit.  You will see in the wooden bed to the left we have rhubarb, growing with runner beans, Zinnias, fennel, beetroots, Elysium, carrots, peas and roses. I will report back later in the year to let you know how I get on and whether I will continue the polyculture theme into next year.

Getting floral

Clematis, growing with the roses over the wooden arch.

I have only recently tried to grow flowers and purely because I was inspired by my lovely allotment friend Nadine, who grows the most stunning dahlias and who introduced me to growing flowers last year. Last year’s flowers amounted to sweet peas (of course!), a single rose bush, Dahlias (thank you Nadine!) and cosmos.  This year, I think I have added around 50 additional dahlia tubers to my collection across the garden and allotments.  I haven’t stopped there though; I have seemingly developed an unhealthy interest in flowers now. I’m like the hungry caterpillar in the book except with plants rather than food.

 This year’s flowers include… companion plants for my polyculture kitchen garden (marigolds, Nasturtiums, Calendula), Peonies, Zinnias, alliums, Annual and perennial sweet peas, more roses than you can shake a stick at, clematis, Jasmine, multiple varieties of hydrangeas, lavenders, Nepeta…

the list goes on...

….and on

….and on!

Oh dear!

Back garden preparation

You may have noticed that the kitchen (front) garden looks extra full of plants at the moment and that is because I had hoped to be able to start to create a semblance of a back garden over the summer.  I eagerly made the most of spring bank holiday plant sales and purchased in anticipation of the great back garden plant off, However, all the plants are still in the front garden and not a single hole has yet been dug.  Sadly, the back garden is still full of rubbish from the bathroom and kitchen installation and with some work being undertaken this week, I can’t get rid of it just yet.   So, will the plants ever leave the front garden? Who knows?!?!?  I really do hope so!  But then, the front garden is going to look so bare when everything goes and I may just have to venture back to those garden centres again!

That's it for now, don't forget to say hello if you are passing. Happy June gardening!

Until next time,

Kelly x