If everyone had a garden, would anyone riot?

On the left is a photo of the veg patch taken about three weeks ago, and to the right is a photo taken today!

Okay, so perhaps that is a bit of a sanctumonious title for a blog post, that actually, has nothing to do with the riots that have been happening in the (surprisingly) sunny UK over the past few days, well, maybe a little bit! I went to bed not knowing if the world would still be here in the morning, wondering, if, like in them movies it would be overrun with Zombies. Thankfully, nothing was amiss upon my wakening, mainly due to the inept people of Plymouth being completely and utterly unable of organising a riot, a shortlived campaign on Facebook (hardly covert) attempting to rally looters and rioters to Poundland (?!) was foiled! Who'd have believed! So, I was able to return home and take some pictures of my frankly, unbelievably blooming marvelous garden! 

On the left, you can clearly see the first of many, many courgettes. I have had to find new ways of eating them due to the sheer amount produced (about 20 is the count so far), including Chocolate and Courgette cake (holla on the comments if you want the recipe!). On the right is a very healthy looking runner bean (I didn't even want to plant them this year!).

The sunflowers! On the left is the benchmaker, being a benchmark! ho ho ho, and on the right is me, there's about three weeks in between shots - look how big they've grown!   Below is a shot of the sunflowers today, they look like they've grown a bit more, and still; no sign of flowers!

I planted a few varieties of sunflower, but only two have come up, the massive ones about, and this little diddy sunflower, which has three flower heads! I'm rather proud (and it makes me happy every time I look at it!). To the right is one of the tiger lillies I bought in St Ives, looking splendid. Although they only seem to flower for a day or two and then disappear again.

On the left we have one of the roses from a rose bush that seems to give nutrition to everything that grows near it! The courgettes that grow right by it are magnificant, but I thought the roses themselves looked pretty today, as do the gladioli, that I bought along with the tiger lillies in St Ives. They were a total bargain in a poundshop! They are leaning over quite a lot though as I don't think I planted them deep enough. Still lesson learned!

More gladioli on the left, this time a red one! There are a few more scattered around the garden that haven't flowered yet, and I'm excited to see what colour they will be! On the right is a nasturtium, hopefully it's the first of many!

Finally, another set of comparison shots! But a few weeks ago the runner beans were looking a bit sad (I planted them a little late, as initially I didn't want any, that is until my Mum insisted that I have some of her seddlings, and I discovered I couldn't let them die), but now they're making up for lost time and going crazy! Looking forward to eating more runner beans, because obviously I didn't have enough of them last year!



A long long time ago....

In a garden in Plymouth, a blogger got very lazy, and didn't post for over a month.

But I am back! A week in Mallorca and lots of not being home later, I have updates of the garden.

Everything is blooming, though not quite as much as I would have hoped by now... here are some photographs of things anyway:

So this is the pre-weeded garden. Gladioli at the back right, peas on the back left and runner beans (which I said I wasn't going to plant, but then my mum gave me some seedlings - damn her!) in the foreground

Here we can see the gigantic courgette plant back left, with smaller ones in the centre - I have no idea why one side of the path is better for courgettes, maybe the runner beans I planted there last year left a lot more nitrogen and nutrients than I had anticipated! At the back on the left you can also see the carrots

This is the pre-lawn mowed photo. Chives forever going strong bottom left and the bench is still standing!

Here's a closer shot of the Gladioli, there's a tiger lily there too, but it looks like the Gladioli, so you might not be able to tell that's what it is. But it is.

I fone thing is going crazy it the sunflowers! Look at them! Definitely taller than me now at about 6ft, these are going to look splendid! Also visible is the purople sprouting broccoli I planted, inbetween the sunflowers and the pansies...I'm not entirely sure how I'll know when they're ready to harvest, but that's the joy of gardening right?

Post mowing/weeding! Doesn't the grass look dapper and the plants free to soak up nutrients without competition?! It was doing my head in, all those little weeds everywhere and the jungle for a lawn.

 I'd quite like to sit out here for the evening...now it's looking all smart and that

And this is the veg patch....I guess it is quite developed after the last post, where the courgettes were seedlings and now they have little courgettes on them!

I picked some carrots earlier, and and and, they are DEAD STRAIGHT! So win for my bucket idea! Photo's following soon.....

Summer! Well, it's almost here....

There has been some cerazy weather going on recently, super super hot days and almost NO RAIN! Insane, it's been hard work keeping the garden going and also a lot of water. I only have a watering can as I believe if I had a hose I would go a little bit watering happy, and end up with a huge bill (metered bills you see)...so it takes quite a long time to give the garden a good going over on those dry days, and I also find it difficult figuring out when the plants have had enough water.

My courgette plants didn't really fair very well, I planted lots straight into the ground in April looking to capitalise on the lovely warm weather, of all the seeds I sowed, I got two little courgette seedlings. One always looked ropey, and the other has continued to prosper:

Feeling sorry for that one lonely courgette, my mum gave me a big bundle of seedlings for my birthday; I was gicen four runner beans, four sweetcorn and two more courgette plants! I was rather pleased about this as the sweetcorn I planted shared a similar unfortunate story as the courgettes....but here they are, looking ready to grow up into something good!

I'm very excited about the height these plants will add to the overall look of the garden, when it's in full bloom, I will upload a photo of the whole space, right now it's all bare earth and tiny seedlings, which is exciting, mainly because you can see the progression of growth. I was just looking through old photos of the carrots and the sugarsnap peas (which I'm now actually convinced are mangetout - however an internet search has provided no back up for my turncoat theory), and realised how much everything has grown! It's so easy to look at the garden everyday and not notice those few centimetres or millimetres of growth each day...

I'm very excited at the prospect of harvesting enough peas to eat in a meal, they are delicious straight from the plant!

Having a blog is a great way of looking back over the progress of plants. These were just little seedlings in my last post and this photo was taken over a week ago! They are positively massive now! I'm really looking forward to pulling out lots of bunches of carrots!

Again, this isn't a very great photo (need a better camera), but this is the progress the sugarsnap peas have made! I can't understand why the ones closest in this shot have sprung up so high, and the ones towards the back of the netting are still only a few inches tall - perhaps the soil is better this end, or there's more light/less competition?

The herb garden is going crazy! Especially the parsley (nothing new there!), so I must start using that more! I will also have to start finding uses for the sage and the dill!

Last year when my housemate moved out, she left a little pot of strawberries...I didn't do anything with them - just left them to wilt, and look! They've popped back up again! Just at the top right of the label you can see some yellowy green fruits - strawberries!

The final photo from my garden is of this gorgeous palmy type plant (typically I don't know what this is!), but I love the peachy tips it has grown.

This is just a great bed of colour! I have been meaning to have my arm tatoo finished for a while, and the colours of these flowers have really inspired what I'd like to go for...when I get enough money that is!

My bench!

The banchmaker finished making my bench! It was actually finished and installed ages ago, but I've been too busy sitting on it to post about it!

This perhaps isn't the best photo I could have taken, but you get the idea. The lawn has been suffering a little so I think I'm going to have to get some lawncare treatment - evergreen or 'aftercut' which I saw advertised this morning. My engineer friend has given me the loan of a lawnmower, which the benchmaker used yesterday to make the grass look very neat! Fortunately today we've had some rain after all that hot weather, I hope the garden explodes into action!

I planted this one last year, it didn't really flower in its first year but for about the last three weeks its been showing some lovely blooms. As usual, I planted this one and forgot to keep the label, so I've forgotten what it's called! I saw one in someone's front garden last night on the way to the shop, and it was about 6ft tall!

I didn't really consider how big it would become, and perhaps if I did I may have put it somewhere else, not directly infront of my kitchen window!

Lots of deadheading and care has made these free pansies really very happy, and the baskets and pots look very colourful indeed!

And these are some lovely looking pansies from my mum's garden, as well as some absolutely gorgeous wisteria!

I would love to one day have some wisteria in my garden, though not my current garden - I imagine having a little cottage with a small kitchen garden with a lawn that come right up to the door, and wisteria that trails along a pagoda or over an arch. But! As for now, I'll have to practice in what I have! 

Tulips!

I have always really loved tulips, and I think if I had more space, or a front garden, I would grow them. Here's some pictures of some pretty one I saw whilst I was walking a few days ago, along with some flowering rosemary (something I didn't know it did!).

I really loved the colour of these tulips, these photographs don't really pay them any justice.

I think whoever owns this garden should be proud, and I'd have loved to have snuck a peak at their back garden!

This rosemary has gone mad! What a huge growth! The little blue flowers on it are so pretty, after seeing this I looked a little more closely at mine and noticed just one or two little flowers - a flowering rosemary is a good thing I hope!

I also noticed my tiny little thyme plant had lovely little lilac flowers on them too!

A little looky at how things are getting on....

The last time we looked at them they were leeetle seedlings, now, they're slightly bigger seedlings! But, they are well protected from cats and birds at least:

 Do you like my swirly planting?! I'm actually really pleased they popped up in formation! Originally there was a swirly one, a straight one and another swirly one on the other side, but the cats/birds put pay to that!.....Not bitter at all

These are my star pupils of the Sugar Snap Pea class! I have around 8 plants altogether but these ones are the most photogenic

Chives! Rhubarb! Blackcurrants!

I've been dissatisfied by my rhubarb for the last few days, then I looked at an older blog post of them and was surprised at how much it had grown! Well done rhubarb!