A bit of growth - finally.

*blows the cobwebs from the blog*

It just feels like it was the longest and coldest Spring ever didn't it?

Maybe it is just me but it seems everything is much slower growing this year than last. Even the slugs are slower! (which is great, I am not complaining!)

So in between showers yesterday I took my camera out for a 'walkabout' to capture a few things in our garden.

When out weeding the other day I came across this sapling at the side of our house, and after a bit of research (my youngest sister) it has been identified as a baby Ash tree ! No idea how it ended up here as it certainly wasn't planted here by the previous owners and there are no Ash trees anywhere in our locality. Just have to thank Mother Nature I suppose. Now we just have to find somewhere to plant it.



Ash sapling

 After planting our seed potatoes we had a few left over so my partner decided she would like to plant some for our patio, so two seed Red Duke of York potatoes were planted in an old pot. And they are thriving!

The ones in the raised beds are coming along nicely too..

Red Duke of York

Our other potatoes, Sarpo Miras, look like they are never gonna grow, but when I looked a bit closer I found them starting to peep through at last (just hope there has been no frost this week because I didn't top them up with soil).

On the other side of our garden our Rhubarb is flourishing, and we have already had two Rhubarb tarts from this lot!

And the Strawberries in the polytunnel are coming along nicely too! the bigger ones to the front of the picture are in their third year, the smaller ones their second year. Looking forward to some yummy fruits soon!

And last but not least (a rain shower sent me back indoors) our three Blackcurrant bushes are also thriving, and are getting a few visitors too! Heres one fella I caught working away...

Catch up in the Garden...

Its been a while since my last post but July/Aug with kids seems to fly by. Next thing you know and it will be back to school time!

As for the garden, well I was going to tell a tale of woe, of a garden that hasnt dried out all summer, or of the hundreds of slugs which have eaten all of our carrot seedlings, and the tops of most of our onions, and are slowly eating their way through our cabbage (regardless of beer traps) and I took photos to prove it too.

But why share the woe when most gardeners are all too familiar with my tale.

So instead I'll just share a few photos of what is doing well this year.......our Strawberries and our Tomatoes. And where are they? yep, in the polytunnel, out of the rain.

The strawberries have finished giving their crop so are now concentrating on 'spreading their wings' and producing offspring, in abundance!

I plan on potting up as many of the runners as possible in the coming weeks.

A small snippet

The Tomato plants (Gardeners Delight), all 20 of them, are thriving, I've had to 'top them' before they took over the tunnel though.

I planted them out 2 weeks later this year than last year, so we are still waiting on them to ripen...

We cant wait for a bit of red.....

Ok, just one photo of my woe this year...

This gardening lark aint easy...

I feel like the garden has given up on me, what was once (a few weeks ago) full of hope and empty raised beds waiting to be filled is now full of gloom, heavy wet soil and still empty looking.

What is left of the Parsnip seedlings I planted havent grown, the rest are slowly feeding the hoards of slugs that visit the raised beds at dusk.

The Beetroot seedlings are doing a bit better, not growing but mustnt be as nice to eat for the slugs.

I have a continuing battle picking the blighters off the Onions every evening but I seem to be keeping atop of that problem (they dont like the Garlic as much it seems).

The 'greens' are ok thanks to plastic bottles covering them and I have invested in some copper foil to go around their bed. The slugs dont seem to cross it (so far).

I managed to mow the grass around the beds yesterday (in between showers) so they dont have as much hiding places today. If it wasnt for the resident frogs I shudder to think of the infestation of slimey pests we would have.

Outside may be sad this week but inside the polytunnel we are getting a loads of  Strawberries every day.

But turns out we are not the only ones 'enjoying' them, found a 'stash' of them in a corner of the tunnel.....

I am hoping its only mice........

Catch up in the polytunnel

Well hello again blog!
Its been a while blog, have you missed me?

I had great plans (& pictures) to blog about some Tomato plants, weeks ago,which failed to come to fruition.....until now.

Once upon a time I had a space in the polytunnel and some growbags.........

And outside our back door I had some of these(Gardeners Delight), which had been 'hardening off' the previous week or so in a small plastic greenhouse.....

So with a coupla Bamboo sticks, some twine and a scissors we have these.....

I really dislike throwing away living plants so I potted up the 4 spares; hence the pots in the middle of the bags. This year I put 2 plants per bag rather than 3 like I did last year (only 2 out of the 3 bore fruit).

On the other side of the polytunnel we decided to grow our Strawberry plants this year. This is half of them...

Plenty of flowers (& future Strawberries).....

And while watering the tunnel our resident slug eater peeped out for a shower..

Wish he had a few more friends though because we could do with alot less slugs in our garden, with all this wet weather they are breeding like rabbits!
And speaking of rabbits we spotted 2 during the week in our garden browsing over newly planted seedlings....... its never ending with this gardening lark.