An Update

So what have I been up to over the last couple of days, well besides maintenance not much really. The weather has suddenly gone from warm days and wet evening and nights to hot dry days and warm nights, so as to not repeat my mistakes, I’m making sure to water my young upcoming seedlings and the established crop bearing plants as well.

So far on the seedling front I have radishes, spring onions, beetroots, swede, fennel and today a lone carrot is up. In the greenhouse I have kohl rabi, pak choi, Chinese leaves, kale, turnips and mizuna. The spring cabbages and broccoli haven’t germinated as yet.

I also spent the last few days out with the girls and completely knackered both them and myself (it always backfires).

Yesterday I got home to signs of the sweet corn coming into flower. I had hoped they would have put on more height but if I get a cob off of each plant which would give me at least 33, I’ll be very happy indeed.

Yesterday evening I also harvested my first beetroots, which I’m afraid are much smaller than I hoped they would have been but then they suffered greatly from lack of watering during the dry spring period. My first cucumber was also harvested weighing in just over a pound. The tomatoes gave me a cropping from four of my plants and I have to say the ‘Broad Ripple Yellow Current’ is an incredibly sweet yellow cherry and will be going on my permanent list for re-growing in the future.

Now onto my third obsession of this growing year: my melons. I happily told you all of the discovery of a baby melon forming on one of my plants but I went into the greenhouse yesterday and found it dying, OH! The pain!!! But with further searching I found this little beauty, its flower has not yet opened so I’ll be checking it each day and when it does open I’ll help it along with transferring the pollen from the numerous male flowers that I do have to it’s stamens and hope that this would ensure its chances of developing into a full blown melon.

I cannot mention obsessions without mentioning The Patch or one of its members, so I’ll quickly show you what I found this morning on my early inspections, the first butternut fruit, hopefully it will be pollinated well and grow away.

Any way it looks like we are in for another scorcher today, I think I will go set up the girls paddling pool and I will leave you with a few pictures from the last couple days of the garden’s flowers and it’s mini beast visitors.

My buddlia standard is really bringing in the butterflies, saw this comma butterfly yesterday.

A Green Elephant Hawkmoth Caterpillar.

A two spot harliquin.

This is a large weevil species - Sitona lineatus.

My only and favourite rose is in flower again.


The last sweet pea plant has begun to flower.

I grow all sorts of wild flowers/ what others may call weeds in my flower beds and this red clover is late in flowering but the bees are all the more happier.