Summertime

Still warm and mostly sunny; occasionally cloudy and a shower from time to time, but overall not bad summer weather.  The greenhouse plants need daily watering, and the pots are starting to wilt after a couple of days without attention.

The late summer flowers are starting to come out: the buddleia, Lilium henryii and the Japanese anemones (the latter well hidden behind the rose 'Mme Hardy', which as usual is looking brown and horrible now its flowers are over).  The alchemilla flowers have been pulled up, and some of the dreaded pink geraniums; I'm hoping to reclaim some of the border fronts from them.  The annuals are still holding back a bit, although the cosmos is producing more flowers now; a bit of feeding may be in order.  In the greenhouse, the first freesias have flowered;  we've had the first few tomatoes, and there's an aubergine swelling impressively. Outside, the French beans are just reaching picking size, and we've had a few tiny courgettes and some much less tiny broad beans.  The gooseberries are now finished (ie frozen and jammed), the raspberries are producing occasional small punnets and the plums are beginning to mature, to the joy of the local blackbirds.

There are at least three independent baby blackbirds around, and I can hear another somewhere close by, still calling for food (maybe the one that had lost its mum the other week?).  There are young robins still about, but they're not showing themselves much here; one got into the summerhouse one day and couldn't find its way out for some time.  The butterfly boom is also starting; we've had peacocks and a red admiral, as well as a comma and meadow brown (and the whites of course).

Two days of sun and a thunderstorm

Rather more than two days of sun, actually, and definitely more than one thunderstorm.  Two nights of spectacular flash and crash (and downpour), and intermittent daytime bouts since then. This coming week should be more settled, less hot and humid than the end of last week but dry for a few days at least.  I managed to thin the plums, rather belatedly (some are already starting to turn purple), in advance of the storms, in case there was wind as well, but fortunately there was no damage.  Some of the plum trusses were huge, and I removed a whole bucketful of plums; it goes against the grain to cut off big, healthy fruit, but it's for the best.  There are still lots on the tree.

The apple cordons have also been pruned, and this year I've tried to tidy up the shape of the trees as well as cutting back the long growth.  There's a lot of aphid damage on them and I put the prunings in the green waste bin as some of them looked a bit diseased.

The garlic (a bit small, but not too bad) and shallots (better than I had feared) have been lifted, as well as a healthy crop of potatoes that had come up underneath.

A bit too red

The flower display in the garden is tailing off, as it tends to do at this time of year.  There are still a few roses, but the big display is over.  There's the crocosmia, and the Lilium henryii is still to come; the francoa is in flower, and of course the Big Yellow Thing, but the general picture is a bit colourless.  Even the rampant pink geraniums are going over.  Nearer the house, the display is better, with still lots of pinks and the lavender, and of course the pots on the patio; the salpiglossis in these is fading a bit, but the overall picture is still colourful.  The flowers on the ricinus plants are striking, but I hadn't bargained for the bright red that they bring to the mix; it goes not too badly with most of the other reds in there, but not with Penstemon 'Garnet', which just looks wrong with them.

The last baby blackbird seems to be mostly independent now, although still hanging around with mum a bit.  Mum is taking it easier, and sunbathing a lot, even just a few feet behind me as I was picking the last red gooseberries; she's quite trusting.  The fruit has been attracting a pair of bullfinches as well as the blackbirds, and the odd sparrow has been in there too (we have lots of sparrows, and they're still mating and nesting).  There were glimpses of a small brown bird today - a warbler of some sort, probably.  The butterflies are coming out; a red admiral was around the other day, and a few meadow browns.  The buddleia is starting to flower, so I'm expecting more soon.

Growing our own

Although the veg plot isn't as productive yet as I'd hoped (mostly because much of it still needs to be cleared of weeds), we're doing not too badly so far.  The lettuces are still going strong, there are more gooseberries than I can reasonably deal with, and the blackcurrant bush that was fleeced up against bird attack has yielded three jars of jam.  There are broad beans ready to pick, and the first courgette is fattening up.  The leeks need to be pricked out (when I can find somewhere to put them), and I'm hoping that the garlic and shallots aren't too put out by the potatoes, obviously left over from last year, that are sprouting among them.  The runner beans are starting to flower.  A stiff breeze earlier this week has knocked down some of the cooking apples but there are plenty more; there are fewer eaters this year.  Lots of plums, though, and I need to thin them and prune the tree.

Much more exuberant

We're still doing well with cut flowers too.  There are still roses available, and lots of pinks.  A jugful of pinks, oregano and sidalcea with variegated dogwood foliage was very tasteful but not necessarily in a good way; they would have made nice bridal flowers but were a bit too pale.  The first dahlia flowers are now out, however, and a few orange dahlias with Crocosmia 'Lucifer' and purple salpiglossis is making a much more exuberant arrangement.

The windowbox has been planted up with the leftover salpiglossis and some red-foliaged amaranthus, around a couple of small pale pink fuchsia plants; it's a bit sparse but it'll do.  The pots on the patio are doing quite nicely; they're a mix of ricinus (all flowering, remarkably, although I put them in as foliage plants), cosmos, more salpiglossis, the amaranthus and various fillers including a phygelius, a crimson-flowered agyranthemum rescued from the garden centre at the back end of last year and overwintered in the greenhouse, the purple osteospermum, a purple sedum, some bidens which is making a splendid show, and the phormiums for structure.  The big pot at the bottom of the garden is also still doing very well.  The sweet peas have not flourished, however; Tutankhamun is hanging on in there quite well but only one other plant, a purple bicolour, has survived.

The biennials have been sown in the greenhouse: sweet william, forget-me-nots, bellis and pansies, and some cineraria in the cooler situation of the kitchen windowsill.  All are starting to germinate except the pansies, which as a genus seem to have taken a dislike to me.

The area over by the hedge is a bit of a disaster, seriously overgrown with geraniums and long grass, but the butterflies seem to like it; there was a comma in there yesterday, also a tortoiseshell and what I think was a small skipper.  Also in there was a very vociferous baby blackbird which seemed to have lost its mum; when I had lunch out on the bench it came and joined me for a bit, then went off next door.  I hope mum was just having a siesta, but it did seem to be on its own for a long time.  Our usual hen blackbird is still feeding a youngster, and there are still young sparrows about, but the birds have mostly stopped singing so I think most of the nesting is now done.  A robin appears from time to time, and a linnet came for a drink today.  Our lame woodpigeon has also returned; he hasn't been about for a while (we think he had too many competitors to chase off) so it was nice to see him back.  The other pigeons seem mostly to have dispersed, although there's a persistent individual that comes to the patio for food quite a lot.

The weather has been on the cool side, with some showers and a fresh breeze earlier in the week; one night I put the tender plants back into the greenhouse to be on the safe side.  There has been warm sun for the past couple of days, however; a little more of that would be welcome.