Can you kill mint?

 I bought some apple mint last year. The pot I wanted to put it in had something else in it, and while I was waiting to transfer it, I forgot to water it. It shrivelled away to crispy brownness. And I thought I'd achieved the dubious honour of killing mint. Wrong! The mint was tougher than I gave it credit for.

I also failed to empty the pot and put the "dead" mint and its soil on the compost heap. It's just as well I was so lazy in my gardening. Without any further watering from me, during a wet patch in spring the mint revived. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's now thriving. There's clearly a lot less of it than there was before I forgot about it. But it has survived, and I'm confident it will be thriving by the end of the summer.

In other news in the garden, my apple tree is having a bumper year. After a crop of just 5 apples last year, this year we have this many:

I'm fully expecting the tree to decide it's worn itself out again next year and to give me another crop of just five, but for this year it's apples galore.

I planted quite a lot of sunflowers this year because the seeds were near their use by date. My first one has just opened.

It's a pretty short, skinny one, but I have a taller, fatter red one just coming into its own.

The garden as a whole is full of things growing. There aren't as many bees as I remember, which is strange, as I have more wildflowers than ever. Perhaps they're on holiday. The crew of sparrows that spends most of its time in my back garden disappeared for a while but has returned. I was very relieved to see them back. Despite the racket they make, constantly shouting cheep at each other - or maybe even because of it - I had missed them a lot.