Up The Garden Path

The warm May weather, and the early June rain, has brought on the garden wonderfully.

I have to admit we are not the tidiest gardeners and regularly let things go to seed.  This leads to some very interesting floral displays.  Leeks and other onions produce wonderful purple pompoms.  The cabbage family masses of lemon yellow crosses, hence their Latin name crucifers.  Many of the seeds are viable.  I haven’t planted leeks, spring cabbage or purple sprouting broccoli for a year or two, but they are coming up all over.

We therefore have a policy of not weeding until a plant is big enough to really recognise it.

Each evening I take a walk around the garden with a torch and pick up any snails I see. They go into the garden waste bin for the council to take away to their big composting site.

It also gives me a chance to check up on the frogs, and last week I met our occasional visiting hedgehog.  Snail hunting now includes taking out any uneaten cat-food for the hedgehog.

Every morning I go out to ‘view the estate’ as my father used to say.

When it is dry I water the tomato tubs and vegetable beds.

I take a look at what has been nibbled and what is growing.

During the past few weeks I’ve been puzzled by a volunteer plant at the end of the carrot row.

For a while I thought it might be one of those weird leaves you get in mixed lettuce seed packs.

Then this morning I noticed the mystery plant had a nice white bulb developing under it.

So I called Fester out with

"You know that plant?  I think it's a white radish."

He came out, had a look, and announced

"It's a turnip."

As I hadn’t planted any this year I replied

“Well, that's a turnip for the books.”

 

Look!  All the Facebook friends and Twitter followers had to suffer this, so I don’t see why you should escape.