6th - 8th June

Back to the allotment to plant out the 3 crown prince squashes and the 4 pumpkins. This was a lot quicker as there was no more manure to put in. The watering still took a while though. I harvested another bag’s worth of Italian salad leaves.

Back at home, the bin full of rotting nettles in water stinks; it is disgusting. In the garden, the roses are coming on fine. The white one is in bloom with a few buds still coming, and the initial burst of red rose quietens to a dark pink. In this weather, we are watering well, especially the hanging baskets. The front one is showing 3 red petunias, and the 3 back ones are also looking good. The first one has some deep purple petunias which have a rich, velvety look and texture about them. The third basket has a mass of light purple petunias and the fuchsia is about to burst open some flowers. At the moment, the outer petals which are white, are just teasing apart to reveal a mauve inner petal.

 

 

7^th June
Another hot day. We spent the morning at home before going out after lunch. It was a good opportunity to water in the earlier part of the day so that the soil would be dry in the evening and not damp which encourages slug activity. I potted up the turbo tomatoes into their final pots as their roots were reaching the base of their previous pots. We had to get another large pot for one of them, and we also got a smaller one for a regular tomato. I don’t want to plant any in the ground as we had tomato blight last summer. Only later do I discover that blight is a wind-born fungus, so the soil makes little difference although spores do fall on it. Three of the sweet peppers are showing fruit now. I am looking forward to seeing what becomes of them as this is the first year I am growing sweet peppers. I decided on them last year after having such a huge input into tomatoes and growing such good strong plants that all got affected by blight, and yet having huge success with growing chilli peppers for the first time. I came to the conclusion that peppers would be a safer bet, although I’m only growing 3 chillies as we still have the vast majority of last years’ in the fridge and freezer. One of the sweet pepper plants has been affected quite badly by either slugs or flea beetle or something similar as most of the leaves have been chewed away. All is not lost though and I have moved the pot to higher ground and put down more slug pellets.

That lovely white and mauve fuchsia has bloomed now and I am delighted with it. It has quaint little upper pointed white petals making a display over a tight little mauve skirt, it looks just wonderful.

 

8^th June
It was so hot today, that all I did in the garden was to put up a shelter and play under it with my assistant gardener who also had the day off. A very relaxing afternoon.

Next post: 9th June