A day in the garden

It's been a beautiful day today and I've spent more or less all of it in the garden.  When we moved down to Weston 7 years ago our garden was a scruffy lawn with some tatty flower beds.  I was delighted with it though as the previous owner of our old house had concreted the entire garden and painted it red!  So just having soil was a welcome change.

Since then we've done lots to it, particularly over the last couple of years when I've been working part time. I was really inspired by Alys Fowler's Edible Garden on BBC2 last year and since then I have copied her idea of mixing vegetables and flowers in the same beds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s1lc8

This is a photo illustrating a perfect day for me - knitting, BBC6 music and a sunny garden!

One thing I have never been able to grow successfully is lupins.  Every year I plant them, only for slugs to come a long and om nom nom them.  Then every year I say never again until I see them growing in someone else's garden and I go and buy some.  This year, a momentous event has occurred - one of my lupins has a flower!

Fingers crossed if I maintain my slug pellet regime (sorry I am not very good at being organic/cruelty free!) the rest will do the same soon and I will get that lovely cottage garden effect.

Today I have had a whimsical moment and I made a little plum slate fairy path to the fairy door which I had for Christmas.  I love fairies and have quite a few in my garden.  Unfortunately it is difficult to get a good photo of them as they just look like ornaments when you point a camera at them!

This is my hydrangea.  It's a white one which I think is nicer than the bright blue and shocking pink ones you see in old ladies' gardens.  This one starts off pale green, then turns white and at the end of the season it goes to a dark reddish pink.  Last year I put some into a vase in the living room and felt very smug at having home-grown cut flowers!

    

The courgettes in the mini-greenhouse are looking good and it won't be long until some of them are big enough to eat.  Last year my courgettes didn't do too well and succumbed to mildew so I only had a few edible ones.  This year I have used a mildew-resistant variety (Tuscany); however there is still a bit of it on some of the leaves, but I am brushing it off regularly and it doesn't seem to be affecting the plants too much.

 This is a variegated jasmine plant.  I've had it for a few years and it was getting a bit overgrown so I hacked it back quite harshly earlier this year but it seems to have recovered quite well.

This is a mimulus flower.  It's a bedding plant.  I had never seen them until last year but I looked out for them specially this year as they are so pretty.

I'm not generally a fan of lilies as I don't like the cloying smell  but I love the colour of this one and it is unscented.

Beetroot, leek and swiss chard all doing quite nicely

The view from my sun lounger!

As well as all the planting and weeding I managed a little nap in the sunshine and a few chapters of my book - bliss!