Summer Plotting

Dearie me, it's been a while!  MA, ME, camera breakdown... other things conspire against me- it's all go at the allotment, but blogging has taken a battering. Hurrah for some summer-ish weather!  By the way I'm hoping I've just made a change that should make commenting easier- please do comment!



Lots going on to report at the plot: produce to collect each time we go (small quantities but good).  Excitement over our first onions, garlic, peas, mangetout, and lettuce; and the pleasure of strawberries, and raspberries that have been happily growing away in the greenhouse.  Yum yum!  And lots still being planted out: brassicas, squashes, even french and runner beans are still going in....


A highlight for me: out first sweetpea! I know it's probably nothing to old hands, but I've never been able to grow sweetpeas successfully, so I'm so pleased to be able to stick my nose in a bloom, savour the smell and then sneeze about twenty times through hayfever- luxurious torture! 

The other flowers are coming along too: roses, peonies, alliums finishing up, verbenas coming on.

There's a blackbird nest in the rose arch, with a parent bird sitting tight, but no tweeting chicks....

The herb garden is filling out

  
Using cat litter as a slug barrier didn't work! The latest trick is making sharp pointy crowns from plastic bottles, with a ring of copper tape around. It affords some protection! However the slugs climb up any sticks stuck in for support or pigeon protection. I've put rings of copper tape around the support sticks, but it may well have to be netting to keep off the pigeons, although I like Alys Fowler's dense plantings of french marigolds and other things around brassicas to confuse pigeons. Although you then have to keep slugs off the marigolds!  

The Joy of Alliums

Everywhere, around the plot, alliums are star-bursting purple and white. Attracting bees and bugs and even yielding some food for humans.  I'm going to introduce even more to the plot next year!