Many people like to post their garden update once a month, but I really think that there are more than enough updates to share every week. In a month, my garden will look completely different, and I like to look back every week to see what changed. I don't realize the changes when I'm there every day, but once I look at my photos I'm surprised how fast everything grows.
Last week, I have showed you my first raspberry harvest. It was a few raspberries and not all of them were even completely ripe, but I just couldn't wait. A couple of days later and I don't know what to do with them. They keep coming every day and I ended up having a plate full of raspberries on the table snacking on them all day. We have invited our neighbour to come and harvest some, so let's see if this will happen. My mom keeps telling me to make some preserves, but it doesn't make sense for us as we don't eat them like that. I'm not complaining, I'm just overwhelmed by the quantity that we got this year. I will have to reduce the branches for next year to keep them in a bit of order as they're getting out of hand.
Even though it's been 34 degrees Celsius for a week our lettuce hasn't bolted yet. Luckily, I must say as there are still quite a few plants to eat. We have visited my sister earlier today, and we brought her this beauty.
I love fennel in salads. It adds a special flavour and fits spring vegetables perfectly. Many people toss the green parts, but we eat them all. You can eat them raw, steamed, stirred fried, etc. It's a bit difficult to choose the right location for them as they have negative impact on many vegetables, but once you find the place it's a great plant to grow.
Yes, yes, I know, the weeds are getting out of hand. Every day, I clean some beds, but there are just too many and not enough time to clean them all at once.
It looks like the zucchini season has started! Luckily, I have spent a few summers in Sicily where they make plenty of dishes with zucchinis, so we're not going to waste them. Try grilling them with olive oil and seasoning them with vinegar, fresh basil leaves, pine nuts, black olives, salt and pepper, and you can thank me later.
Yellow zucchini grows a lot of leaves, but no signs of flowers yet. I have never seen so many leaves on a zucchini plant, and I kind of like it. It looks pretty. And I don't mind to wait for these zucchinis as I have other plants already producing.
I think that next week we will start harvesting our pickling cucumbers. They are my favourite!
Climbing cucumbers don't look bad either. They are full of flowers and if it all goes well there will be a month full of crushed cucumber salads.
My beans have finally started flowering. Many plants have been destroyed by slugs, so this is a big milestone!
Pepper plants are getting big and I can see tiny flower buds. I think that they will open in a couple of days and soon I will see tiny peppers hanging there.
This is another pepper variety that is already flowering...
Do you remember my potato volunteers? I have plenty of tomato ones too! I removed hundreds of them already, but kept a few in empty spaces and I will see if they will carry some tomatoes or not. They are still tiny, but if the summer will be as hot as it is now I'm convinced that I will get something out of them. I left some tomatoes on the soil in the greenhouses last year, and they sprouted once I started watering them again.
My strawberries to be...
The first year of growing strawberries was a bit success, so we're expending our 'production'. I'm keeping the same bed from which I removed the straw, so that the babies can spread out. I will see how many I'll get, and I will move them to another location if there are too many. It's a great variety and as strawberries come early, I can remove them once they're done and plant something else in the same spot.
Calendulas are living their best lives. I don't take them home anymore as when I did it 3 years ago I brought thrips with them too and as a consequence they demolished my indoor plants and some of them haven't fully recovered yet. When I planted them I wanted to use them in salads and I also wanted to try making some creams, but now I only enjoy looking at them in the garden.
And here is my succulent mess. These plants are doing whatever they want and I let them. I chop them from time to time when it's becoming too wild, but other than that they can simply enjoy themselves.
Roses are pushing the second set of flowers. This year, they are exceptionally healthy even though you can see the black spots on leaves now - it's not too bad considering it's end of June now.
This one gave me such deep cuts, and as a 'thank you for the pain' I gave it an angry haircut. It's still too big, and I'm planning to cut it even more.
My green manure is full of Borage. It's such a pretty plant that gives tons of beautiful flowers that bees love. You can eat leaves as well as flowers. I like the flowers on my salads, but I find the leaves too hairy and prickly.
This year, I chose green manure consisting of many annual flowers, and I must admit that I don't know the names of all of them yet. I love this one. On these photos you can see the difference of less than a week.
I think that I won't use any other green manure and this one will be in my garden from now on 😊 And I also think that I will let them all go to seed and spread themselves all over the garden...
This is how it loos like from above. These plants give soil a lot of nutrients, and at the end of the season I will cut them and either add them directly in the soil or simply spread them on top.
I kept destroying the sweet peas as it was taking over a large area. This year, I gave up and let it grow and now I have these beautiful flowers. It also understood the assignment and it's contained itself behind one of the green houses.
I'm so happy with this lavender as it looked dead in March. The plant was completely black, so I thought it was rotting. Then I saw tiny pops of green here and there and look at it today. It must be about 1 m in diameter, and although its base is still black it looks happy.
Since I'm reminding myself to water my Phlox it's doing so well...
And my hydrangeas started flowering. These are my favourite flowers...
This variety has various colours on one bush. It's not so visible now, but I'll show you in a couple of weeks. It will look like rainbow!
Everyone envies my Snowball. They start green and then they turn white with flowerhead as big as an actual head consisting of hundreds tiny flowers.
This is how she looked like earlier today. She's gigantic and I would love to bring her home in autumn, but I'm scared that I will damage the roots, so I might take a cutting and wait for a few years until she will get this big in my other garden too.
That's it for today! I guess, I will be in the garden at time of posting it removing some weeds, so that I can show you next week how busy I have been 😊
Thank you for reading and until next time...
