I'd like to say that this year's growing season has been a triumph but ... sadly, no.   But let's start with something cheerful - these nasturtiums are helpfully climbing up through the raspberry canes, the sight of their lovely vibrant flowers just sings happiness to me. Elsewhere in the veg garden, things are not looking so rosy.  Ideally, the veg patch could have done with spring warmth and summer rain; instead, like many other gardeners, I've found the weather this year has done me and the garden no favours.   Weeds have thrived, edible plants have not.   Although ..read more

  I was reminded the other morning how rare are those times when it becomes possible to just slow down and deeply relish the moment without any of the distractions of modern life.  I'd been down to the veg patch to water my tomatoes and, as I walked swiftly back through the gardens on my way home and towards work, I saw how quickly a few days of warm weather had ripened the blackberries on wild brambles growing untamed in one of the borders.   I slowed down to eat a couple, lingered on to pick a small handful and then I started to look for a pot to gather enough for a ..read more

Tulips have started to flower already! Today I've been wondering why spring is called spring. Yes, I know, my brain frequently flies off at a tangent. The answer should be obvious but I love a bit of etymology.   In Old English 'spring' meant a welling up of water, a wellspring ... rather than a falling down of water from the sky as is the case today! The word also meant to arise, gush or burst forth which is certainly the case with my garden this year.   It's a fabulous season, from the daffodils and violets blooming to the whole garden visibly coming back to life.   ..read more

A couple of weeks back I braved the evening rush hour commute on London’s Underground with a rather beautiful and very tall purple clematis bobbing about under my arm. I let four crowded trains go by before I could get on board and even then struggled to gain enough space for me and my precious plant. It was worth the effort though - that gorgeous plant was gifted from The Guernsey Clematis Nursery via the Garden Press Event where I had spent many happy and worthwhile hours during the day.   ?? ? ? ? The Garden Press Event is an annual gathering where the garden media (bloggers, j ..read more

A picture of my violets just because they are so beautiful  What is going on in my veg garden?  My laziness in the garden last year is producing some unexpected results in that some of the non-perennial plants have decided to regenerate and come back to life with renewed vigour. Hey, I’m not complaining!  I gave up on the garlic cloves planted last year; they just didn’t grow much.  Too shady, too wet, too warm? I don’t know.  Inexplicably, those same cloves started to grow again last month and currently stand at 10 inches of leafy growth. They seem to be beh ..read more

What's happening in the garden this month ? Weeds, weeds, weeds!  That's what. And spiders ... so many spiders. And because it feels like the wrong time of year for spiders to be stretching across every plant in the garden, I'm crashing through them on a daily basis.  How is it with everyone else? Not surprisingly everything in my garden is responding to warm wet weather - not just the weeds. Everything tells me autumn is just around the corner but when did summer slide out of the picture? (Admittedly we are having a week of heat atm.) But I'm not ready to think about autumn until ..read more

  Can it be that time of year again already? I'm just finishing off my summer batch of elderflower cordial and yesterday, as I walked home, I saw that my favourite spot for collecting the elder tree's bounty was positively dripping with ripe elder berries.   I'm sure a lot of people would either not notice this beautiful spectacle or might think "lovely" and pass on by.  But not me.  I paused to 'see something of the beauty of nature' (to quote John Mortimer) then dashed home to fetch a bucket and secateurs.   Of course I left plenty for birds and other wildlife and ..read more

This past week the last of the gooseberries have been picked (a bit later than usual, the weather has been so unhelpful this year) and now it's time to reshape the plants with a summer pruning.   This was supposed to be done in early July but I'm banking on everything being a bit late this year.  And, flushed with the success of squeezing two more gooseberry plants into my overstuffed garden, I want to make sure they're trained properly. In my gardens I have four red gooseberry bushes - one bush, two fans and one in a pot that's been ambushed by sawfly again this year.  Gooseb ..read more

It's been a pretty disastrous year for veg growing in my patch and this morning, late July, it feels positively autumnal. (Not in a good way.) But I've been through my seed packets and found potential for quite a lot of late summer sowings. By taking advantage of the (relatively) warm and wet weather currently in play here in London, I'll have quick growing crops in the next few months, plus winter leaves and spring harvests. Just a small selection of what can be grown this autumn! I don't usually give much thought to late summer sowing at this time of year (there's usually plenty mo ..read more

Once again, Prunella vulgaris, aka Self Heal, has returned to the veg patch with renewed vigour. It's a perennial, an enthusiastic self-seeder, low growing, edible, medicinal and a food source for bees. Sounds good, yes? Photo via Google Creative Commons licence from Wallpaper Flare I sowed seeds for this about ten years ago because of its appeal to bees and other pollinators and since then it has sporadically re-appeared over the years to fill cracks in the brick paths.   Initially I was drawn to the look of the flowers and their appeal to pollinators. Its flower stems sh ..read more