End of Month: June

Veg and herbs to the left, fruit to the right, spuds and edible shrubs in the middle.

So much for posting twice in one day as promised in my last post!  I wasn't happy with the photos that I took on a gloomy 30th June so deciding which to use took longer; suddenly another week has gone by and we're basking in a heat wave!  I'm beginning to think my life is linked to some universal remote control. June certainly came and went on fast forward. The weather frequently rewinds back to early spring (and now forward to summer) and time spent on work (college or day job) shuttles between play and pause. It feels as though we waited such a long time for summer (or even spring) to arrive and suddenly we're past the summer equinox and sliding inexorably towards autumn.

I've had to resist the temptation to garden in the past few months due to other calls on my time. This has been no mean feat as I so love pottering around outside that if I go for a half-hour watering session, I'm likely to reappear several hours later.  I've treated myself to a couple of guilt-ridden gardening days which have, disappointingly, been spent weeding, collecting fox/cat poo or netting beds against pests - so the veg patch has largely had to look after itself, bar the occasional watering or transplanting of seedlings. (Gotta love those rainy days!)

Strawberries, Orach, fruit trees, sunflowers transplanted to the back.

There is, of course, no such thing as a hands off veg garden; whilst I have masses of orach, strawberries, sunflowers, herbs, broad beans and onions (and fruit) - and all appears quite lush - there are no beets, beans, carrots, peas. Quite a lot has been self-sown from last year or are perennials nurtured through the winter - as with French Tarragon - and then just watered.

I've planted out more flowers and herbs - eryngiums, scabious, geraniums - but the garden's not how I imagined it would look this year.

A few flowers - Echinacea, cowslip, scabious, phlox, purple sage... but the rhubarb may have to be moved!

My college year has now finished so I have an extra day to spend more time in the garden; hopefully it won't be too late to start some more veg off - I'm relying on the weather being about a month in arrears (but this weekend's sunshine may prove me wrong).

I've got a couple of months of an extra day of leisure before I start college again in mid-September; let's see if that will be enough to get the veg patch in shape.