Where has May gone? It’s June on Monday and we have been experiencing weather more akin to July and August. I do wonder if this will continue through the summer months or are we getting earlier summers. It hasn’t rained here, on the Hampshire coast, for weeks and the ground is rock hard. Already the daily watering regime is becoming tiresome but necessary.
Six on Saturday is a regular weekly meme run by The Propagator blog where many gardeners from across the world share six photographs of what is in their gardens at this moment. It’s fun to do any anyone can join in with garden pics.
These are my Six on Saturday.
1. Dwarf Broad Beans
I have never grown broad beans before but gave them a go this year. They were destined for my allotment but due to the uncertainties of Covid19, I decided to grow them in pots on my patio. As you can see, the pods are swelling and it looks like there will be a good crop from 6 plants.
2. Salad leaves
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that growing salad leaves in a container at home is new to me, and will do this every year now. Lettuce grown in the allotment is all well and good, but I love the way I can step outside and cut the baby leaves as and when required. They taste so good too!
3. Plug plants – Busy Lizzies
In this lockdown world, many of us are buying plants over the internet. Not naming company names, when making an order with a large well known firm, to make up the minimum order value, I included 24 Busy Lizzie plug plants – always useful for filling in gaps. They arrived eventually after three weeks but give the company some credit, they had only been in transit for 24 hours. I’ve seen plug plants in garden centres and aware they are small but I was not prepared to receive 24 minute seedlings, each in a cell about the size of a tiny thimble (2 were already dead). I quickly potted them on into larger cells but have already lost 6, with another two struggling. What is interesting is the plants at one end of the tray have done better than the other end, which is peculiar.
4. Chocolate Cosmos
This was given to me by my eldest daughter for my birthday last year. A friend warned me they don’t always survive winters, so imagine my delight when I saw green shoots earlier. It is looking very healthy and now has a flower bud, hopefully with many more to come.
5. Pansies
Another re-emergence for 2020. I bought a tray of orange and (almost) black pansies last year and while they didn’t flower through the winter they are looking wonderful again. Most of them are orange but interspersed amongst them are a few of these marvelous multi-coloured ones.
6. Hanging basket
In past years I’ve always carefully color co-ordinated my hanging basket. This year, I bought (also online) a selection of hanging basket plants in total ignorance of what color the plants were. I now have a really bright basket of flowers, with a trailing Fuschia, color yet to be determined, at the back. After trying to achieve stylish and elegant baskets, I’m so pleased with my ’In your Face’ basket.
Please pop over to The Propagators Blog to peep over the garden fence at other people’s gardens.
