Week 11 in the South West

2 CC

The garden looks like it's going over a bit, sadly. BUT there are still some really beautiful bits. The garden is bi-coloured with mostly white and green: green of all the veg leaves, and white from this lovely flower:

 We're not sure whether it is chamomile or feverfew! We've done lots of research online (where would we be without google?), but the jury's still out. There are two slightly different varieties - maybe one is feverfew and the other chamomile? Any suggestions welcome!

Lots of rain this week - which is great for everything grow-grow-growing! (Including the slugs... A has been diligently picking them off at night, and she found 30 on Wednesday!! All munging the lovely veg and the dahlias.) The field is greening up again after the hay making too, so it's looking much prettier from the house - and better for the sheep.

Lots of firsts this week!

A and J ceremonially ate the first tomato last night - apparently it was very good.

The first sunflower is out! We think it may be a little confused actually as we weren't expecting them until late August (normal time), but never mind!

First gladioli out - beautiful, and a bonus as we weren't expecting flowers until next year.

First peas eaten - apparently very good.

And thousands and thousands and thousands (maybe a slight exaggeration) of redcurrants. Beautiful on the bush - glistening jewels of red colour against the green. Also blackcurrants and gooseberries, and raspberries from a neighbour. Drowning in soft fruit! Lots in the freezer, raspberry jam, redcurrant jelly, crumbles, little tartlets and on cereal every morning.

Slugs coming back in force, although A doing very well on slug patrol.

Broad beans and sugar snaps over, making way for squashes and pumpkins. Beautiful courgette and huge cucumber picked this week.

All looking very good - and the cutting patch is about to spring into even more colour!

Is it really week 7 in the garden?

We are too busy to stop and write much BUT at 2 Coombe cottages we have been:

(glorious buzz-buzz-buzzing of bees on the cat mint)

1. Planting out the final marrows and squashes in the old forget-me-not raised bed, and Cosmos in all the little gaps we can find.

(Rose at the front of the house)

2. Doing some final sowings of pak choi, carrots, spring onions and beetroot in big tubs (emulating S's orchard) 

(The allotment - potatoes in the foreground)

3. Eating potatoes, sugar snaps, cut and come again lettuce and spinach.

(The cutting patch - you can see the stocks have come up!)

4. Filling the house with the scent of sweet peas, stocks and feverfew.

We are excited by the sunflowers and dahlias and even the late planted Persian buttercups look like they might flower this year, and the toads are establishing well in the allottment triangle, cleverly making homes underneath planks and pots. 

(E has a view of this from her window!)

And the best flower of the week has to be the Rose 'tree'. This was a cutting from Mickeys garden in Suffolk and planted in ?1995 when we forts came to the house. It was planted to grow up I a dying ornamental prunus -  the prunus is now happy and the Rose dominates the garden for two wonderful weeks in June/July.

Interesting fact of the week: In China, they see the "TOAD," not the "man" in the moon. The toad is also considered "one of the five poisons of yin." They say that eclipses happen when the "toad in the moon" tries to swallow the moon itself!

And why gardeners love toads:

• Common Toads produce a toxin from a pair of glands on their back which makes them distasteful to would-be predators.
•  They may remain in one area for long periods over the summer months, hunting for slugs, spiders and insects at night.
• Toadlets and adults spend the winter buried down in mud, under compost heaps or amongst dead wood. 

Week 6 in the gardens

It's been a beautiful sunny week leading up to the longest day so the gardens are all preparing for productivity! The CC household are contemplating stopping the veg box order for the summer with the prospect of spicy salad leaves, chard and spinach, sugar snap peas and potatoes all begin being harvested in the next week.

The Coombe cottage garden 'allotment' triangle has switched from blues and purples and pinks to a lovely dapled pattern of green and tiny white flowered towers of peas, feverfew and foliage.

Best plants of the week have been 

1. The mixed sweet peas ( sown 18 January inside - Frangatissima, Turquoise lagoon and Purple Pimpernel as well as a few unannmed saved sed from 2014) We started picking this week, and the scent is fantastic. We are planning to give a bunch away every other day.

2. The night stocks  ( sewn 1 March and planted out 26 April)  are beginning to bloom - we'd thought they would be white but have come through beautifully pink, white and purple. We can't bear to pick them yet!

3. The bright star-white flowers of love in-the-mist - the contrast between the green frondy foliage and the white is even better than the traditional blue.

4. The cutting patch is coming along nicely with the alliums finally beginning to burst at the front and the sunflowers at the back starting the spurt to the sky phase of their lives. The technique of planting in a trench which you then earth up to give more support seems to be working alongside the new support canes and wires. 

Casualties have been few this week - black flies are continuing to really plague the beans, and are now even spreading through the feverfew and bolted spinach. We are continuing to knock them off with a hose. We really need to plant earlier in the year. 

And are those alliums going to burst? They've been at the point of flowering for nearly 6 weeks! 

The orchard allottment

S returned from her French meanderings to a mega-weeding week and now the cutting patch is coming along well. There look to be lots of lovely self sewn flowers from last year coming through. The summer palace was celebrated by book group with a balmy summer evening without any insects swarming! 

Best plants are those amazing carrots again- we swear they've put on 6 inches in a week, 

the bright orange of the calendula, and the fantastically fruitful loganberries and blueberries.

Difficulties are with the gypsophilia-n-bean-eating rabbits. However s and r are finding the organic repellant they applied before going (liquid fence) may be working after all our doubts. 

Fact of the week: For centuries, carrots have been connected with health benefits. In the Middle Ages, carrots were believed to cure anything from sexually transmitted diseases to snakebites. Carrots became associated with vision, particularly night vision, during World War II. The British Royal Air Force published a story that said skilled fighter pilot John "Cats' Eyes" Cunningham could thank a steady diet of carrots for his night vision flying prowess. In response to the story, many British people began to grow and eat more carrots. They wanted to improve their vision so that they could see better during the compulsory blackouts that were common during World War II. Although Cats' Eyes' carrot eating made for a great story, it was, in fact, propaganda put out to conceal the fact that the Royal Air Force's was actually using radar to locate Luftwaffe bombers during the night.

The Garden Project Week 2

2 CC

Well it's been a week of drama - a brief frost, hail storms, slugs and snails, bright bright sun and torrential rain! However the cutting patch at Coombe Cottages is almost completely planted, and now only awaits the bounteousness of dahlias coming from Parker's Bulbs to complete the plan. (They came today! Slight mistake where E managed to order 20 tubers... but we'll find space!)

We also have cosmos waiting to fill in any bare patches, and some self seeded sunflowers to transplant for gaps. It all looks highly expectant!

Casualties at CC - so far pretty minimal all things considered - a lot of slug and snail munching of sunflowers (particularly the 'Teddy Bears'), 2 wind snapped Russian Giants before we gave them a little more support, and in the veg patch the blue lake climbing French are just toooo cold...

Fab plants of the week at 2CC - the absolutely glorious nodding spires of aquilegia and the blue clouds of forget-me-nots filling every corner of the garden, the Mulberry starting to unfurl her leaves and the huge stalks of rhubarb we've been eating for breakfast.

And at The Orchard Garden:

S's allotment is already well established, having been a cutting garden last year and inspiring 2CC's Sun Bed. It has a wonderful lines of permanent flowers. The anenomes, tulips and narcissi are finished but now are making way for the most beautiful irises! You pick them all tight budded and spiky green, and they burst into vibrant purple and yellow. Plenty more to come thanks to Poundland!

Further down the allotment R is busy with the serious business of growing veg. And the even more serious issue of keeping The Badgers At Bay! Last year, we saw the strawberry fortress and this year S sowed the Carrot Castles (in bins). All are growing happily safe from The Badgers.

S's plot has flowers that are biannual and here come her wonderful Sweet Williams looking healthy in their second year.

Interesting Fact:

Aqualigia Vulgaris, is also called columbine and granny's bonnets. The scientific name comes from eagle, because the spurs on the back of the flower look like eagle's talons. Columbine is because the petals represent five doves, nestled together. It is said to be the symbol of Aphrodite and the Nordic God of the heavens.