Early May

Thought it was about time I updated for May these are all from the beginning of the month as I've yet to upload the photos for the past week. This year we made a small raised bed for L to plant up. I gave her some seeds that I knew would come up quickly - cress, radish, carrot, marigolds & dwarf sunflowers. As you can see the radishes popped up within 5 days, L was rather pleased with this!

We found a slo worm in the compost heap, surprisingly hard to photograph this was the best of 10 shots.

Just about empty plot at the beginning of May.

Inside the shed cucumbers, courgettes, pattypans, butternut squash, pumpkin and a messy floor.

Runner beans coming along very quickly.

Bedtime reading, I'm loving Paul Merrett's book added bonus is that half the book is recipes for using your produce.

Now onto the 15 May strawberries, rhubarb, peas & broad beans growing. Sweet pea wigwams in place.

In the greenhouse shed everything is shooting up sweetcorn,

cucumbers, courgettes & pumpkins.

Pattypans & butternut squashes.

chillies have now been potted on to slightly larger pots.

Pak choi didn't have any luck with this last year, I think I was a bit late planting.

Garlic has now come up.

Potatoes peeping though earthed these up quickly because of the frosts.

And this is a tray of compost that my wormery worms made for me, I'm hoping my chillies & peppers will do well in this.

In the past couple of weeks everything has gone haywire because it has been so hot I'll update soon.

Things are starting to improve this week.

We used a strimmer and cut all the paths at last.

I've planted lots of swede, turnips, brocolli, cabbage, cauli, sprouts, carrots and parsnips, hence the white fleece everywhere, it's very fine so the water can still seep through and the plants seem to be growing well underneath.

Lily was delighted to find a flower on her strawberry plant at last.

Although the 16 tomato plants look rather sparse as far as greenery is concerned there are now quite a few little tomatoes growing.

Broad beans are still flowering although the first planting have been attacked by greenfly & blackfly. I found an organic spray, which is safe for use near children and you can eat the veg on the same day as spraying, but have now noticed some ladybirds so hopefully nature will sort things out!

Sweetcorn is doing well so I'll be able to remove the net soon, I've found out it's Jackdaws that pulled up my seedlings, so now I net everything.

Runner beans are starting to romp away at last, couple of flowers starting too and we've had rain today so that should do them alot of good.

Peas are looking well, I was concerned about a couple of mice holes in the ground but no damage yet.

These are some of the neighbours chicks, we are hoping to get some soon probably not from this bunch but similar.

Can you spot the lacewing?

Love the colour of these thistles.

I don't know what these are, they are growing all along the hedge and smell gorgeous.

Yesterday I finally managed to pick something, yay!

These are the books I've been using, as I don't tend to watch gardening programmes I don't really know who gives the best advice. I bought Carol's book last year and it's very easy to follow, I've bought the 'Cook your own veg' one now and it has some nice recipes in there.

Had to get these two as well of course, getting plenty of tips.