Height of Summer

 My three word gardening post this month shares warm colours, plentiful bounty and fading blooms in the height in summer. Some things didn't make it through the heatwave but others have hung on.

My Lilly pots were buds as we went on holiday but they showed us their beauty when we got back. I had no idea what colour they would be, they were in a mixed bag my mum gave me for my birthday way back in January, but they are mighty. All gone now though.

My table vase has continued to delight. This week I am still picking sweet peas but with a new addition of cranberry cosmos and delicate gaura, this one is called 'The Bride'. This vase is scented with some bronze dill which has started to fill out.

My friend Beth did a sterling job of keeping the veg patch going over the heatwave. We came back to tomatoes, French beans, courgettes and potatoes.

I picked nine jars of beetroot but had to compost quite a few because they had bolted. Otherwise it was a good harvest.

We are on our next variety of lettuce. I love this type of lettuce with homemade salad cream - it feels like a taste from mt childhood.

We used the last of the smaller strawberries to make smoothies. Yum.

Our hay is all in.

It is the height of summer and time to enjoy the sunny moments.

Jo xxxx

July...ing

I normally have a varied smorgasbord of images collected over a month for my monthly 'ing' post but July has been a whirl of banking as much work as I can before the school holidays, keeping the garden alive and getting to the end of term. July for us has really been about getting ready for our holiday to Switzerland. It was our cancelled 2020 holiday rescheduled - even this one was touch and go with lots of flight cancellations and changes but we got there in the end.

It was a fun packed holiday, the kind we like, so here goes:

Cooling - off on arrival at the campsite at the lakeside.

Staying - at Interlaken in Switzerland

Swimming - in lake Thun from our campsite. I know you will be thinking, was it cold? No, it was just perfect.

Taking - a boat ride across the lake to Thun town.

 

Visiting - Thun Castle and the old town.

Loving - an open air museum of traditional swiss rural living. Inside the houses, on a ten acre site, were amazing buildings. My daughter connected with her inner Heidi and loved the contents of the different chalets. Each house shared a different rural skill: cobblers, cheesemakers, silk weavers and farmers to name a few.

Reaching - the top of Europe on the Eigerexpress cable car. Nice to cool down and view the Eiger.

 

Speeding - down a mountain toboggan run.

Finding - an outdoor lido pool with a big curly slide.

Ending - our holiday with a walk from Wengen to Lauterbrunnen. I was not popular with the youths on this choice but the views were amazing.

 

Our holiday views need to be pretty epic to beat our regular home view and we have taken in some amazing landscapes last week. Hope you enjoyed them too.

Thanks for dropping by. Jo xx

Good and Bad

I have good and bad gardening events to report this month. The varied weather is not really making for a thriving garden because there is not really much of a routine. When it is hot I get on the watering train and make it part of my day and if not then I get on with sewing. However, sporadic hot days make for missed watering and leggy plants.

My verbascum has been attacked by these caterpillars and although it is a visual feast of camouflage, the caterpillar made a swift feast of the whole plant.

I changed up my kitchen vase from blue and purple to rich tones of hot summer. The first year of my 'Indian Summer' alstroemeria has been an absolute treat which I have mixed with deep burgundy snap dragons and more of the prolific knautia. Ladies Mantle always makes a good foliage filler as well as dark stemmed flowers from my heucheras. 

My friend, Beth, grows a wedding garden here which has been brimming with large double snap dragons, larkspur and stocks. This pic shows the last of the foxgloves earlier this month.

Just a few weeks on, it is now a sea of cornflowers, white Ammi, roses and lupins.

I have created a monster with my sweet pea fence but I keep picking them every 3 days and giving them to my neighbours. Anything to stop the peas forming.

In other floral areas of my garden, the beds are continuing to provide continuous flowers.

The herb troughs are getting full and possibly need re planting in the Autumn now that my first year plants have established themselves.

The hot border at the front continues to provide eye candy, flowers for picking and a talking point for passing walkers.

Outside the studio I planted up a climber in early spring and it is getting settled in. 

My raspberries are starting to throw out some fruit and I am so pleased I inter-planted the canes with Sweet William. These make great cut flowers with a wonderful scent.

We had the most delicious blackcurrant flan and the constant stream of summer fruit has felt so luxurious.

The back/side garden reliably flowers in pink, purple and blue. I would like it to be deeper but I remember the amount of building rubble we put under this lawn to make the haha and know that it would be too hard to dig. I am happy to consider the Shropshire view a continuation of my garden instead.

The varied weather has played havoc with my beetroot which is starting to bolt. I have a pan boiling away as I write.

I think this weekend is the time to dig my first potatoes.

We have been enjoying lettuce and my first cucumber for over a month now. The next variety of lettuce is ready to take over after these ones.

In wider gardening/small holder news Andy has taken his cut of hay because there is a good forecast for a few days to dry it out.

Before...

After.

All ready to bale today. Its going to be a scorcher... Happy gardening whatever scale you are working with. Jo xxx