Catching Up - 1st to 7th of June

I've been silent on the blog front and for that I apologise, meant to post an entries weeks now but was to lazy to do it, tut! tut! So it’s about time I make the time to catch you guys up on what I've been up to.

Well as to be expected a lot has happened in three weeks and not only was I not updating my blog, I was also not keeping notes anywhere so the details as to what’s been going on in my life is starting to get a bit sketchy!!

What I have been doing is taking photos, so I'll attempt to fill you in on all the happenings using my photos.And to make the reading of the post easier, I have split it into three parts each part represents a week.

Insect Life

Ladybugs cleaning up the willow bench of the aphids.

Bumblebees enjoying the flowers.

Hoverflies checking out the Opium Poppies.

Pond Life

The tadpoles have began to grow legs.


A pea cockle mussel (don't know how it got here but their are loads in the fruit section mini pond).


Bubbles from an aerating pond plant.

Lots of fledglings visited the garden early June and their inexperience made them a lot less cautious, making it easier to get close photos of them.




Blue tit fledglings bathing.


Black bird fledgling foraging.

Wren fledgling calling its parent.

New blooms to usher in the summer.


Lady's Mantle starting to open.

Flowering thyme.

Over wintered carrot going to seed, (my oldest wants to see what the carrot flower looks like).

Sedum

White clover.

Dwarf Scarbosia beginning to open.

Crops Ripening:

Wild Strawberries.

Hungarian Sweet Peppers.

This year I really want to make more of an effort to store my herbs for winter use, etc.

Last Year I successfully stored two very large zip lock bags of chives and one of parsley. This year I plan to do this plus try to dry some others for storage as well.

Chives which filled one large bag and is now in the freezer. This prevented the loss of a substantial amount of chives to fungal rust, and now the chopped down plants are sending up fresh leaves which I am using, leaving the bagged one for winter use.

I also needed to cut back a Greek basil plant before planting it out into the herb bed and as I did not have enough to make a pesto but too much to use straight away I froze the leaves in a small zip lock bag.

The main herb I really want to try and store for winter use is the oregano, which I will be drying first. The next series of photos shows how I went about it (they were finally hung in the loft). I can tell you that it worked and the herbs dried beautifully, retaining their lovely scent when crushed.

On the Friday one of my close friends asked me to make a belly cast of what she has been working on for her summer harvest. She'll be popping soon :)

No such harvest for me this year, so I had to make do with my first proper meal from this years sowing on the Saturday :-

My first harvest of mangetout.

My first harvest of 1st early potatoes.

After the potatoes were boiled in salted water, this is what the two crops were turned into. It was seasoned with my own fresh herbs and some of last year's sundried tomatoes.

Last years chard is still going and was tossed with couscous and cranberries.

The two dishes were eaten with lovely butterhead lettuce with homemade herb dressing.