The beautiful vegetable garden

I decided to grow more flowers in the garden this year.

In particular, I decided to scatter the loose seeds I found in the bottom of my flower seed bag in the tomato bed. My theory was that based on what happened last year, the tomatoes would soon swamp them, but I might get some nice flowers before they did. The seeds had fallen out of the envelopes and packets I had them in, so I didn't know what they were, only that they all looked a lot like poppy seeds. It turned out that a lot (but not all) of them were poppy seeds. We've now had over a week of poppy flowers. They look lovely and the bees are delighted (seriously delighted, they buzz happily around them). The tomatoes though, are the ones that have been swamped, so I suspect I've deprived myself of maximum yield.

Our decision to plant roses has also paid off. The iceberg climbing rose produces clusters of bright white roses. 

Iceberg climbing rose flowering just after the bud stage

Iceberg climbing rose, flowers fully open

Unfortunately, only one of the two iceberg roses we planted either side of the gate has produced any flowers this year and, strangely, it's the one that's always in the shade because the sun can't reach that corner of the garden - although if it grows another metre or so it'll get a fair amount of sun, and if it reaches the top of the fence it'll have all-day sun.

On the plus side though, this is the rose that can be seen from the house. The other one is hidden by my raspberry bush.

You may notice from the above photo that my corn has grown a lot. The above photo is from 23 June. It's actually growing like mad at the moment and has got even further since then. Here's a photo from today (Sunday 25 June):

Here they are a mere 11 days earlier on 14 June 2017:

And here they are another 11 days earlier on 3 June 2017:

My cucurbits (squashes, courgettes and cucumbers) have grown even more impressively over the same period. It's a jungle out there now.

They're even taking over the herb patch.

Yet they were still this small on 14 June 2017:

And here they are back on 4 June, when the leaves were so small you could still easily see the flowers:

They are still flowering, but even though the flowers are huge, the leaves are even huger, so you have to get close up to see them.

My onions though, which decided to flower instead of producing decent onions, are clearly visible.

I've spent a lot of time already this year declaring that the garden has reached the best it's going to look this year and it's all downhill from here. I've not been right yet. I think it might partly be because I've been watering the garden every day on which it hasn't rained, and vegetables love to be watered and hold up better against disease and pests because of it.

How the sun moves across the garden

19 June 2017

20 June 2017

Two days. Different cloud patterns. Lots of birds on 20 June. This garden is very popular with birds.

The garden is beginning to provide food

The garden as a whole is looking possibly the best it's going to look all year, as nothing is visibly diseased yet from a distance and the plants are all growing nicely (there's plenty of green and black fly visible close up, but I'm not too stressed about that, as I remove it whenever it gets too much).

I even decided to reduce the amount of mustard I was growing and tie the rest neatly together, because it was looking messy and I wanted an attractive garden more than I wanted the maximum possible number of seeds.

Even though most of the plants are still small, several of them are beginning to produce food. We've had a fair amount of lettuce already. I don't understand why this year's crop hasn't been ravished by slugs, but I'm delighted. I seem to be getting less slug and snail damage in the garden in general this year. Theories on why include that April was so dry and that I removed so many of the shrubs from the garden that they didn't have anywhere to shelter in winter.

The blue love-in-a-mist self-seeded there from the front garden and I left it as part of my policy of having more flowers this year.
We're also already on the second crop of radishes (if I'd put more effort in or organised myself better, I could possibly even be up to the third or fourth by now, but I have two long lines of them and am satisfied with my harvest so far).

I've also had an entire bowl of strawberries. I'll be growing more of them in the greenhouse from next year. I'm using shredded paper under them instead of straw. You need to be a bit careful with your watering or it can go mouldy, but otherwise it seems like a decent alternative to straw.

My first mangetout are ready.

And I just tried my broad beans to see if they've got big enough to eat the beans rather than eat the pods whole.

They just had, but only just. A bit bigger would have been better - although if you leave them to get too big, they become tough and unpleasant to eat.

Also, we've already eaten some rocket (we probably won't be getting much more unless I resow, as most of it has started growing flowers). Slugs love it, so it will have to start in pots away from the slugs or under some form of protection, such as copper slug rings.

We're also getting close to being able to pick some chard.