Yey, garden friends! I hope your plants are flourishing today!
August has been intense, as always: minimal rain for several months, and the mosquitoes are active even in the 'window of opportunity' from dawn to 7 am... It is extremely hot even around sunrise, and I do the essential watering as efficiently as I can - no sitting down in the garden this month, and very little additional work than the innaffiando
So I'll share here what is thriving despite having minor attention and poco weeding!
First, the pumpkins, marrows and zucchini are steaming ahead! It is glorious to see the leaves and tendrils marching across beds and trailing down walls, and the flowers and fruits popping up all along them. This one above is growing into the jasmine.
There are some in pots along the street too, where I ran out of available soil in the garden! This one below is doing brilliantly,...
...and there are a couple further up the Via under my house, climbing towards my second floor.
This one is climbing up my Vitex Agnus Castus or Pepe Dei Monaci.
In the above photo you can also see a couple of the wee kittens I have - their mummy just got spayed, and so they're all allowed out and about to explore outside for the fitst time 🤩😍🌟
This is a chayote plant, also climbing the front of the arthouse.
And a self-seeded peach tree! Not entirely random, as I tend to throw many pips, seeds, tubers and whatnot into various places where I think they might take... and often they do!
And one of my favourite-ever plants, from a cutting my stepmum brought from my village on the Isle of Arran in Scotland, in 2014 - it has flowered beautifully for a couple if months, ans is now making a load of gorgous shiny red berries. 😍 She is al.ost reaching my second-floor windows.
A close-up of the Vitex...
And the miniature rose bush, which seemed for a long time to be failing, but now appears to be in her element finally!
And a pepper from last year, which managed to overwinter and is now getting a second wind.
And the last notable plant here; good old rucola, still going strong after all these months of heat, and giving me spicy leaves to bring an added dimension to my dishes.
I'm off to the Sunday market now... sending big love to all the gardens we're tending around Gaia-Sophia.
Clare.
www.claregaiasophia.com