Welcome to our June garden!  There have been so many changes that I can barely remember all the things that have happened.  By the end of May, the bare earth of the veg plot has finally started to fill up and the change from bare soil to lush greens.  It genuinely amazes me how those small seeds can create such amazing things.  Most things in the green house have been potted on and I have realised that waiting for things to grow bigger in their tiny plugs was the reason I hadn’t had much success before. I’ve successfully raised flowers and vegetables from seed this year and couldn’t be more proud (or surprised) at my achievements.

Beautiful tomato plants looking lush and beginning to flower, in a few short weeks we’ll have our first tomatoes to dice up into salads and make fresh salsa, then there are the chilli plants (I admit I bought at the local plant sale) with bright purple flowers about to erupt.  I gave up on my own chilli seeds after months of sitting dormant, of course they finally germinated last week!  It’s a good job we like chillies I suppose as it looks like we will have at least 5 plants.  Then we have my 3rd batch of broccoli seeds.  You might think I’m clever doing batches but in reality, all but two of my other seeds have been eaten by a combination of slugs, snails and birds.  Even though they were the only things I covered over to keep safe. Perhaps the two that remain will be extra strong seeing as they have strived through adversity!

The front garden is progressing nicely, there are a few wild flowers that I’ve left and lots and lots of plants I’ve added that are growing well.  I’m most excited to see the rose, Malvern hills flower and the angelica plant establish itself. The alliums are looking lovely, even in their first year of planting.  I just love their height and the interest they add. I’ve seen lupins all over Chelsea this year so I have bought some that are yet to flower.  Because it is the first year of planting, everything needs time and space to grow in.  There will soon be lots to look at, including lavender, lilies, sunflowers, foxgloves, hollyhocks (grown from seed) and cosmos.

How exciting to see lettuce growing nice and big, being able to pick it fresh and bring it inside for dinner.  Then the potato flowers flowered and I just think these ones on the Maris Pipers are gorgeous.  For some reason the Maris Piper (main crop) have flowered before my Home Guard first earlies…

I have been stealing pea shoots for salads for a few weeks, but now we even have peas.  There are flowers all over the peas and I just love they are scrambling amongst the sweet peas.  I have a feeling I will have more than I know what to do with but I’m happy to share them with friends.
Some of the onions went to seed so we chopped them down and ate them, and they were delicious.  The tops of the onions have blown over too now so we have been slowly pulling them up gradually.  They have the most beautiful bright white flesh and a lovely strong smell and were just perfect in the mushroom risotto I made yesterday.  I have continued to thin out the carrots which Nye and I scattered rather haphazardly.  It amazes me that even the tiny seedlings I pull out have that strong carrot fragrance.  I pray that we will not be attacked by the notorious carrot fly after waiting so long for these to grow big and fat.

I find it so difficult to do justice to the back garden, there is a corner bed at the back which is now FULL of vegetation, anenomies de caen growing wildly amongst the creeping weeds and gladioli sneeking up higher and higher.  There were  aquilegia everywhere but now they are coming to an end, this one seems to be the last in flower.  Of course the oil seed rape has gone to seed and the weeds on the verge between the field and our garden are growing so tall that they obscure everything.  Even the nettles seem tall and stately and the birds just love hopping between the grasses and dancing amongst the leaves.

I am joining in once again (finally) with Mammasaurs and How Does Your Garden Grow.  I’ve been avidly reading despite not joining in, and last week I loved the somerset yurt garden.