Food ‘n Drink

June’s here and what a glorious couple of days it’s been. Today I spent all day in the garden which was great. A beautiful blue sky and hot sunshine all day. After getting the grass cut and clearing up the edges (more fodder for my new Compost bin) I set to work on uprooting a few weeds. I then planted about 10 lettuces in the salad garden and between the growing chilli plants. I figured I may as well utilise the space between the plants whilst they’re still small. Some of these lettuces came from my Dad and I still have a lot left and no space to put them! I’ve put a couple in large plant pots too just to see how well they fare.

The Fruit and Salad area. Raspberries along the back, strawberries are front left and salad are front right.

After having lunch - sitting outside under the gazebo, I set to work on repotting the remaining Chillis. There were 20 in total, some green Jalapenos and some Tokyo Hot. I also planted a couple more Chillis straight into the ground where there was space (it’s all gone now!!). The other chillis are still going well. I have them on a special matting that draws water from a bowl and stays damp allowing the plants to take water from it when they need to. They’re also out of the direct sunlight besides the early morning and late evening sun. They seem to be doing so much better this way, not drying out and I can see new leaves growing on most of them.

Two tomato plants on the left and the herb garden on the right with the Sage in lovely flower.

I then decided to get my larger sunflowers in the ground. Although the garlic is still in the ground, the sunflowers need to be planted in before they die off through the hot sun and drying out too quickly whilst in pots. Taking them out was easy from the amount of roots they’d already produced, probably the reason for the water going so quickly. So I’ve got 6 sunflowers in the ground now, hopefully they won’t interfere with the garlic and shallots that are around them.

Tomatoes, Gooseberry Bush and the Chilli Bed.

I then set to work on sowing a few more seeds for some more Pak Choi, Radishes and Spring Onions. We already have Radishes growing and knowing now how much space they need I’ve made sure that all the seeds are better distributed. Of course they won’t all necessary grow but I’ve stopped thinking like that!

I’ve also noticed today that a few of our strawberries are starting to change colour to a nice bright red. Hopefully they’ll be ready within the next 2 weeks as we’re away for 3 weeks after that, house sitting for my parents! So fingers crossed we’ll get some of our strawberries before we leave. Still, my Dad has about 10 times as many strawberries growing so we’ll get plenty there too.

So all in all a glorious, stress-free day