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| Back garden in bloom |
Due to funding problems, I've been on short-time from my Citizens' Advice job for the last couple of months. It makes doing even part of my usual job tricky, as it's easy to lose track of what's going on in the team and in the complex world of Social Security law and, unsurprisingly, my pay has dropped through the floor too. However, the compensation for all of this has been that there's probably no better season in which to have extra time off. The garden is looking the best it has since we moved in and the allotment is also unusually trim and tidy. I've even finished off a few decorating snags around the house that have been outstanding for a long while.
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| Garden veg patch |
It's been warm enough to risk planting out the courgettes, squashes and runner beans, using home-grown poles from our coppiced hazel as well as the long prunings from the Bramley apple tree. The latter have been fashioned into a framework to support the squashes as climbing plants rather than just scrambling across the ground, which I'm hoping will keep the fruits away from slugs and damp soil.
The globe artichokes are doing well, although may have to get the chop early in the autumn to allow the tomatoes in the greenhouse to get enough sunshine to ripen; at the moment, they actually provide helpful shade to their pots and roots.
The greenhouse gets a little shade first thing in the morning from the wisteria, now in full bloom and looking great. We can't see it from the kitchen as the clematis arch is in the way and has got badly overgrown, although I can't prune it as there is a dunnock nesting in it!
Some of the sarracenias have been soaking up the sunshine - and a few wasps and flies too!
A couple of unusual features in the front garden are the sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) which grows around the base of a couple of the apple trees and an experiment that worked surprisingly well, planting Spanish bluebells in the pots either side of the front door. The only problem with the latter is trying to decide whether to leave them there to die down or lift them to replant the pots. They are in an awkward dry shade spot which makes replacing them with anything permanent quite tricky.
I had a very successful plant sale last month and have been selling spare flowers and veg plants in the office on my odd days in. If the reduced hours are likely to persist, I'll also be promoting my gardening services again, so may finally get the opportunity to rehome the last of the hydrangea cuttings.
