Since taking on our allotment, the garden at home has been in limbo. There is no change in the front, that remains an insect/pollinator area. But the vegetable garden in the back is being decomissioned for the most part and gradually moved to the allotment. So this weeks update is a real mish-mash of things.
There are lots of bees visiting the front garden at the moment – we packed this patch with Spring flower plants ready for the early risers. I feel really pleased when I see them all buzzing around.
The Lithodora is covered in bright blue flowers and has started creeping over the edge of the path.
I’m still loving the Pulmonaria. Another path creeper! Seeing things escaping the borders is helping the patch feel much more established and wild.
The crabpple tree has been transformed from a worryingly bare stick (the result of overenthusiastic pruning!) to a blossoming tree buzzing with insects. Our neighbours have the same tree in their garden so we pruned them together during the Winter. We were pleased with our handy work until her husband came out and said “My God, I didn’t realise you were going to take THAT much off”. At which point we were worried we’d gone too far. But the trees are still alive. Hooray!
The house sparrows are taking lots of nesting material into their new home. You can see what they’ve done to the hanging basket cocoa liner! They work hard to tug the strands free so they’re welcome to them. Plus they earn their keep by cleaning up the dead twigs in the garden. Saves me a job. We all win.
I don’t know how I feel about this Camellia. This is the first year its flowered and it should have looked like this but turned out to be bright pink. It’s pretty but I’m a bit disappointed.
This is a radish seedling! I’ve planted them out in the raised bed and hopefully I’ll be tucking into some plump radishes soon. The rest will be sown at the allotment. Scott doesn’t like radishes so I need to make sure I don’t get carried away and plant more than I can eat 🙂
I’m proud of these broad beans, I’ve grown them from seed! These are are destined for the allotment.
Becky’s post Days full of flowers a couple of weeks ago inspired me to go outside and collect some flowers to put indoors. I found this blossom on a tree round the corner. The last lot I picked smelt of wee (yuck!) but this smells how blossom should. Looks nice on the coffee table too.
I picked these flowers from the lanes on my way home from the allotment last week. When I saw the Forget-me-nots I had to pick some. The darker blue flowers are called Green Alkanet. It took me ages to find out what they were and I discovered they were imported into Britain hundreds of years ago to use for dye. This plant was also cultivated by monasteries for the red dye in the roots. It’s technically a weed – we have some in the garden and the bees like it so I’m leaving it there for now. Although I’ll make sure I remove the stalks before they go to seed or the garden will be full of it.
Lastly, I received a fantastic bag of leaving goodies from work yesterday (love the wrapping paper as much as the presents)! It contained a butterfly biome, some bee friendly seeds (nigella, cornflowers and scabious) and a gardeners memo pack. We’re going to put the biome in the front garden and scatter the seeds in the wild area of our allotment.
And that is what is happening this week. A bit all over the place but lots of good things happening nonetheless.
Where do I start, such a lovely collection of flowers and photo’s! I love the one of the house sparrow mid action, that’s fab. For a garden in limbo, its looking pretty good to me 🙂
Thank you! I like watching what the house sparrows get up to, they are quite mischievous!
Beautiful looking garden. The birds around here are also pretty keen on the hanging basket lining to make a nest.
I think it’ll make good nesting material for newly hatched birds. Lots of it too.
i’ll take your word for it but everything looks beautiful from here. loving all the flowers and the birds…. that sparrow shot is great!
Thanks Claudia. The house sparrows are quite relaxed about me taking their photos, posers 🙂
wow – lots going on there, I love path creepers too although if they get to close to our grass they take their own lives into their hands when MOH wields the lawn mower or strimmer! Love those bird shots and my broad beans are just appearing too – I went all brave and planted them directly outside, so glad they’re just poking through! #hdygg
Glad to hear yours have come up, I was like that about my beans too. They seemed to take ages to make an appearance but in reality it probably wasn’t that long at all, I was just being impatient.
That doesn’t look in limbo, it looks marvellous! I love plants that plop over onto the path and edge of the lawn as well, the creeping habit I find lovely.
And just when I thought the lamb cuteness couldn’t be beaten you bring out the tits!
Now THAT sounds waaaay more wrong than I meant it to…
Ahhhh I love it all – the allotment excitement, the blooms brought inside especially and the ickle radish seedling!
I need to email you about visiting – and about an IOW trip – must get my bottom into gear.
Such thoughtful leaving gifts, are you going to be starting somewhere new or working from home or dare I say it… becoming a full time allotmenter?
The tits are my secret weapon 😉 Sadly I’ve not become a full-time allotmenteer, how good would that be!! I’ll email you back this week – a new routine has made things feel a bit topsy turvy this week. The radish raita looks supoib, definitely something to make once the radishes are big enough.
Gadzikes – nearly forgot – thanks for joining in again!
PS. This looks good http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/radish-raita 🙂
Your garden is looking rather heavenly so I’m not surprised that the birds are hanging out there. Beautiful beautiful shots Gemma.
Thanks so much Kriss!
Lovely to see your garden in bloom.
I try to bring some cut flowers into the house every week in the summer. Last year I even started a little cut flower garden (mainly Dahlias, Cosmos and sunflowers, although I’m branching out more this year…) at the allotment, which was a real success – I wasn’t without bunches of cut flowers for a single week from July to October.
Oh wow, I’d love to have cut flowers for so many months in a row. I’ve got cosmos and zinnia seeds upstairs which I’m hoping to plant out at the weekend. Our sweet peas gave us flowers for quite a few weeks last year and they smelt fantastic.
I always used to sow radishes as they are so early to get in and wuick to harvest … until I realised that none of us really liked them and only ate them because we had grown them. Now I am more patient and wait for other veggies we actually do enjoy eating to reach a harvest-able size. #HDYGG
Haha, oh no! Radishes from the supermarkets here aren’t that nice so I’m hoping homegrown will be much more delicious.
great to see the wildlife in the garden
Thanks! Having wildlife in the garden feels like a big achievement considering how the garden was when we moved in.