23rd July 2004

The Garden after sun and rain

The garden has been growing well over the past month. Unlike last year, when many plants suffered from a drought, the rain storms and hot sun has helped the plants to keep alive and well. Some plants like the Calendula have tried to take over the garden. Other plants are still thinking about it...

The Weeding Never Ends!

Of course, the rain and sun have not only been good for the plants we want to grow. The weeds have also been having a great time and growing like mad. Joining in with the weeds were the left-over radishes that were not eaten. They have carried on growing and filled their patch. they were the big green mess in the left photograph. In the right photo, you can see how mach space was made when they were all cleared out.

Radish Seeds for Next Year

Here is one of the radish plants I took out. The radish is in fact a large root, which you can therefore see at the bottom of the plant. I wouldn't eat the one you can see in the photograph as it would now taste horrible. A big radish plant has grown from the root. It flowered and is now making seeds. You can see the seed pods it has in the photo on the right. Perhaps we could save them and plant them next year?

Who's Been Eating My Lettuce?

The lettuces grew well. They tasted great too. In fact they tasted so good, that we weren't the only ones interested in them. Living amongst the damp, dark parts of the garden are slippery beasties that can almost scoff a whole lettuce leaf before you could say "Hey! Stop eating my lettuce!" And who are these beasties? None other than the snails partner-in-crime, the slug. This one was taken far away from the garden. Perhaps it's gone on to feed the birds?

Inspecting the Onions

The Mini-Garden Hippo came along to inspect the onions and find out how well they were growing. You can quite clearly see which onions are white and which ones are red. The slugs don't seem to have had a munch on the onions yet. Mind you, if you ate a raw onions yourself, you may find out why!

It will soon be harvest time

Although only a few carrots had grown, they had grown well. The carrot on the left looks as though it is ready to take out of the ground and, hopefully, eat. The Runner Beans are now growing very well, after a couple of weeks of growing slowly and looking rather yellow. Lots of flowers means, hopefully, lots of beans!

Flowers to watch out for:

They may not look like giants yet, but the sunflowers on the left are quickly growing their way upwards. They still have a long way to go to beat last year's sunflowers. On the right, the Hollyhock plants have decided to have a race with the sunflowers. Who will grow the tallest?

The Butterflies are Back!

It is almost a guarantee that if you grow a Buddleia in your garden, you will have a giant flutter of butterflies coming to visit. There are two big Buddleias growing in the garden of Mr. S. (right photo). Among the many visitors, a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly came to visit (left photo) to find some nectar and stretch his wings in the sun.