Our garden: August 2014
We've reached the point we've been waiting for since the beginning of the year - eating our hard work. We are regularly tucking into salad, herbs and dwarf beans with the rest not far behind. The birds have disappeared (anyone else noticed this?) and have been replaced by new living things - mainly caterpillars and aphids. The front is looking great but in desperate need of some proper rain rather than the sort that just gives you frizzy hair.
We ate our first homegrown tomato this week. It was from the yellow cherry tomato plant we picked up for 50p at a garden centre closing down sale. Scott's family came over for dinner (for a whole meal, not just to sample the tomato) and I cut it into 4 so we all tasted the first one of the season :)
The runner beans are growing tall and have out-grown the fence. The bees like them and if these flowers didn't produce beans I'd pick them to put in the house, they're so bright.
It has been a week of pests. Some greedy little slug(s) has munched not one, but four of the big plum tomatoes. I was pretty cross and uttered something that rhymed with brother trucker. My neighbour probably thinks I have Tourettes.
And while we're on the subject of pests, a plague of cabbage moth caterpillars has descended on the kale. I've been pretty hot on removing the eggs but I obviously didn't get all of them. The green ones are from the curly kale and I found nearly 40 in 2 days. The beast on the left is what has been eating the kale nero. After being outsmarted by a caterpillar for a couple of weeks, I got him at last.
We were given a few chilli plants and I thought they were all the same type until I spotted these purple ones. I'm not sure what type they are or if they will stay purple, but they are nice to look at for now.
The hyssop is flowering and surprisingly is blue and white - I've only ever seen it in one colour before. If you are looking for plants to attract bees add hyssop to your list, they love it.
The flowers on this Painted Sage are actually coloured leaves rather than normal flowers with petals. I picked it up at the Farmers' Market but have never seen it for sale anywhere else.
I'm still getting lots of flowers from the garden each week.
The sweet peas are setting pods. I've been removing them and cutting plenty of flowers to try and encourage it to continue flowering for a bit longer. I picked all of these in one evening. I don't want sweet pea season to end :(
Next time I blog about the garden I should have some runner beans to show you and hopefully a tomato or two. I'll be happy if we get a few ripe ones but if we don't, green tomatoes make fantastic chutney. We win either way.
