Sunday 7 June 2015

Gardening in slippers

small tortoiseshell

If you were looking for advice on gardening in slippers mine is don't. Your slippers get wet and full of grit. It's not comfortable. Doesn't stop me doing it though.

Small tortoiseshells have made an appearance in the last couple of days. I'm glad, this year seems short of butterflies of all types and the windy weather of the last few weeks hasn't helped me catch them on camera either. It's not that we're short on varieties, rather that each species seemed to be represented by just one or two examples. I'm hoping that the next ten days, predicted warm and dry, will help bring up the numbers.

tidy greenhouse

I've tidied up the greenhouse and set the tomatoes, cucumbers and melons in their final spots. I still have to tie the wretched smelly things in, always my least favourite job particularly in hot sun. Most people I know revel in the yellow stench making happy faces and saying how lovely and summery it smells. It just gives me a headache. Still, it'll have to be done.

The first flowers on the toms are just beginning to open. I took a picture of the winner, on Surender's Curry, but decided one tomato flower looks just like any other and left it out. Luckily Surender's is a bush grower and needs little pruning which makes it a double win for me.

Basil seedlings

Basil. Inspired by another blogger I bought some peat free starter pellets made of coir and used these to start the seeds weeks ago. I nearly lost the lot and won't be repeating the experiment. The pellets may have some use for cuttings, maybe lavender which I have plans for later in the year, but for seeds they are simply not right. These survivors are finally beginning to grow now they're potted on.
 
flowers on the tomatillo

Out in the garden the tomatillos have started to flower. It's not what I was expecting from previous crops, the plants are very short if sturdy. Let's hope it's the variety which was 'Large Purple/Green' from Realseeds and not a sign of horrible stress and imminent death.

Heading over to the potato patch for the first harvest of the season I found this volunteer oca growing up next to the row. It looks much happier than the tubers I started this spring from overwintered stock but I can categorically state it's no seedling, we haven't had that oca flower here since 1969 (not quite true but some will know what I mean).

volunteer oca in the potato patch


flowers on epicure potato

And here they are, potato flowers are so beautiful.

The new potatoes are small but perfectly formed and I shall enjoy them later. 

first new potatoes - epicure







2 comments:

Xtal said...

yum those potatoes look great. Interesting about the basil, I am not sure about that kind of stuff as my Sage didn't seem to like it but they are growing now. I don't like the tomatoey smell on my hands but I don't mind it in general x

Linda said...

So lovely!