“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” – Douglas Adams
I sometimes think our garden has fairies in it. Things seem to magically appear in it. And not just flowers. We’ve had cars, pots, trees, dinosaurs, woolly items and painted stones, just to name a few. And they just seem to appear overnight. So if it’s not fairies, who is it?
We are still trying to keep weeds down, which seems to be one of our main jobs at the moment. Luckily there has been some rain recently, so not so much watering has been needed.
The rain and watering has been helping the courgettes and squash in the garden to start producing. I recently saw a chef on TV use the leaf stems of the courgette plant as a penne pasta alternative. You need to de-string them and peel off some of the outer skin first. Then chop into short lengths to look like penne. The chef added them to the other ingredients in a frying pan to cook them through. Looked good, though I’ve not tried it yet.
A lot of the veg has been eaten in the garden already. So I have been re-sowing seeds where there are gaps, such as the radish and spinach. I’ve been using the lettuce leaves in my salads at home. And my tortoise Fred is loving them and the empty pea pods.
We have been doing some repotting in the yard and some tidying up of the plants there too. There are still a few more to put into the garden. And we have a few veg plants that are waiting to go into containers at the railway station next month. We still have plants for sale in exchange for a donation to help us buy plant food. Herbs like chocolate mint, dill, thyme and chives. Also sunflowers and a red and white salvia called ‘hot lips’. I love the name.
New in the garden are our two Kashmiri Rowan trees, from the Mountain Ash family. These were donated by the local Soroptomists. We have put them either side of the bench in the middle of the garden to give our visitors a bit of shade. The trees won’t grow too big, and have their fruits hanging from them at the moment. The birds will love to eat these in the autumn. The two containers that used to be next to the bench have been moved to the garden entrance. It makes a very welcoming sight.
The Blooming Old Gardener
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