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!