What you can achieve with a cucumber greenhouse - cucumber perfection

I looked up to the skies and saw cucumber heaven, literally.  There are ten cucumbers in just this shot, its ridiculous! 

I am green with envy, which is ironic, because my envy is cucumber based. I went out for a lovely day with the other half last week, we had not planned to go to a garden because that is not something he would agree to easily. Having said that he volunteered to go to a farm at the weekend, clearly im rubbing off on him!  But somehow we ended up in Arundel Castle gardens which really are something else.  I would go as far to say its one of the best gardens I have ever been to, I took loads of photos and will share them at some point, but for now its all about the greenhouse.

Twenty cucumbers, to save you counting.  This makes my vegetable growing feel shockingly inferior, beginning to wonder why I bother at all

The greenhouse is also something else.  It is not terribly big, but certainly in the veg section it is stuffed to the rafters, quite literally.  The first section is all exotic plants, fine, but not my thing.  Then is a section with just peppers and cucumbers.  Oh the cucumbers!

How on earth these plants manage to hold all these weighty vegetables without snapping, I don't know

Sometimes going to a garden is really inspiring, seeing plants you don't know, and great combinations and what not.  And sometimes is is downright depressing.  All this week I have been inspecting my little cucumber plants for the teeny tiny baby cucumbers just beginning to form.  I have been thrilled.  I am no more.  This greenhouse had huge cucumber plants climbing right up the walls and across the inside of the roof.  And from the plants hung dozens of fully formed beautiful cucumbers, hanging like large salami sausages, or bats.  I have never seen cucumbers grown like this, but I imagine it is fairly standard practice.

These are not cucumbers, they look more like courgettes to me, which just rubs it in further.  Not just cucumbers but a whole bevy of different vegetables

You might think the heavy fruits would snap the plants, and picking must be a nightmare, couldn't nip out in your slippers and a pair of scissors before work in the morning, thats for sure.
The rest of the building was full of all sorts, shapes, sizes and colours of peppers, it was amazing looking at them all.  Although Im not actually that bothered about peppers, and having said that I have about 12 pepper plants!

And some green chilli peppers, just because.  I don't even like chilli peppers
but still I am envious

It just goes to show what you can achieve with a heated greenhouse and plenty of time, neither of which I have.  But I try my best, and do have about nine cucumber plants so im sure I will be inundated.  But I really want a cucumber greenhouse now, what I would do to be able to spend all day in the garden, amongst the legumes.  Until that day, I will just have to be happy with what I have and keep visiting places that aspire you to greater vegetables.  Thats all lies, im going to sit around and revel in my envy.

And just to put it in context, these are my teeny tiny beauties. So depressing

Sweet peas - flowering time

Solid growth, I have tried to tame the unruly mess that peas always become
but there is only so much one can do

Last time I talked sweet peas was at the beginning of May when I was undertaking my least favourite stage - the planting out.  Its a lot of pot to fill and as we also had to perform a pot eviction, time consuming and labour intensive.  But that task done all that is left to do is plenty of watering, and sit back and wait for flowers.

The first bud, took ages to come to fruition 

Seeing that first flower bud forming is one of the best thrills of the early summer as far as im concerned.  What has added to that thrill is that my first bud formed ahead of my neighbour. I have mentioned before that the neighbour and I are in sweet pea competition.  He's not aware of this, but its happening. Being eighty-something and retired, I consider him at an unfair advantage, in both time and experience, so I was made up to peer through the fence and see his bushes bare while mine was just beginning to be spotted with colour.

Lots of flowers ready for cutting, everything seems to have a touch of white to it

Of course now he has steamed ahead, his seven pots and half a flower bed-full producing far more than they could possibly find vase room for, makes you wonder what on earth they do with them all.  But im doing all right.  That first bud appeared around the twentieth of May.  I thought it would be out within a few days, but turns out when your intently watching the one bud, it takes ages.  About eight days later it finally popped out, by which time my patience was gone.

A good barry dare, shock it to you pink

My first pot is doing me proud, producing new flowers every day and ensuring a steady stream for my kitchen windowsill. My second pot is just beginning to crank up a gear and pull its weight as well, which is great because the colours are different and add a bit more variety.  The third pot is still to come, but when thats up and running as well, I think my might achieve my dream of sweet peas from the ears.  I wont be happy until I am giving them away in the street.  Im already wishing I had sowed more seed, even though they are a total pain to plant out.  I went to a garden at the weekend with tonnes of sweet pea plants smothered in flowers, and it has totally put my meager supply in perspective.  More is so more when it comes to sweet peas.

A flirty pale pink

While I don't think any sweet pea variety can exactly be described as manly, I really have gone for an exceptionally girly palette, all pinks and reds, but considering I just bought random packets and threw them together rather than buying a collection, im rather pleased.  I will do a brief run-down of all my varieties over the coming weeks as its always nice to see pictures, real pictures rather than the advertising ones.  The only question is, where are my two orange varieties?!

Buying cucumber seedlings - Pipinex and Delta Star

The cucumber trough, im expecting big things from these girls this year, except that one on the right, already a disappointment

Considering I have seven cucumbers grown from seed this year already, you may have thought I would not need to buy anymore.  Need rarely comes into my purchasing decisions, especially when it comes to plants.  I enjoy having as many different varieties as possible, and a girl can only grow so many. So when I was at the garden centre buying my tomato plants a few weeks ago I also threw in a couple of sneaky cucumbers.

I have bemoaned numerous times that I find growing cucumbers intensely annoying.  Satisfying, but annoying.  A cucumber plant is as likely to keel over and wilt as it is give you cucumbers, and I was not successful at growing them from seed either last year. Having learnt my lesson with warm rooms, I have discovered the real culprits in being cucumber pains are shop bought ones.  They look great in the shop, but get them home and they turn on you.

I would like to say that the reason I only picked up three varieties is because I knew I had so many already at home, but I would be lying.  The real reason is thats all the selection there was.  If there had  been more, id have bought it.

A beautiful pair of Delta Star cucumbers from last year

I picked up a Delta Star cucumber because I grew it last year and the cucumbers it produces are just so attractive. Tasty too, but predominently good looking. Although this is meant to be an indoor cucumber exclusively for those with a greenhouse, mine sat on the patio last year and was very productive.  Being somebody who likes value for money I actually got two plants for the price of one as I managed to find a pot that had two plants growing in it.  Made me very happy.

The second variety I bought was Pipinex. This is a new one to me, but the picture looked nice, and I thought what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Lastly I bought a super cute mini cucumber.  Like a gherkin size-wise, but still a cucumber.  I was so looking forward to having whole mini snack-box cucinos to take to work.  But alas, it was not to be.  I think the cucino lasted all of five minutes before something came along and razed it to the ground.  Sheered, clean off, right at the soil level.  I didn't think slugs were interested in cucumbers, but something of that nature ate this.

One unhappy cucumber

So left with just the three I set about planting, as one usually does.  And this is where it all started going wrong.  The two delta stars I decided to keep together rather than try and split apart, and they are fine.  But the pipinex? A different story! I gave that cucumber one of my prime spots, at one end of my large trough that I bought last year specifically for the growing of cucumbers, snuggled in with three home grown ones.  But rather then stretch its rooty toes into my manure-rich soil and grow big and strong, the damn thing wilted. Initially I thought it must have a virus or a bug, but after pulling off most of the wilted leaves I spotted that the stem had started to go orange at the soil level and had either rotten or been eaten through. It might have been something I did, who knows. Death was slow but steady, I tried to be supportive with a little cane but it was in vain.

rot, or nibble

So having freed up the end space in the bed I stopped off at the garden centre for a replacement and picked up a Fernspot.  After all, cucumbers don't come back from the dead do they?  They do however have little friends.  On returning home with my new plant I discovered to my horror two baby seedlings in place of my original plant. Obviously this isn't really something to show horror at, but it threw my replacement plans out the window.  Basically cucumber seeds did what cucumber seeds always do which is don't grow in your special seed prepared soil, but burst into life months later in some random location.  Which is great because now means that not only am I not without a pipinex, but now have two.  But also means I have a cucumber and nowhere to plant it.  The trials and tribulations of cucumber growing continue.

Two babies surrounding the withered body of their predecessor.  These better not let me down now

Rosenbachianum, white giant and allium flowers

A shot into the centre of a rosenbachianum, very pretty, and shows the airy nature of the flower stalks

In my last post of alliums I talked about the growing.  This time im going to actually cover the big flowery balls of joy themselves.  As I said in my last post, the alliums are coming in waves so the last two varieties are not out yet.  The first three have virtually been and gone, shame.

Rosenbachianum is less of a solid ball and more of a cluster, but equally at pretty

Up close and personal the little flowers are super cute

The first one out was purple Rosenbachianum.  The main difference between this variety and the purple ones I had previously is the density of the flowers.  The individual flower stalks that make up the ball of flower are really long and radiate out from a central point.  This makes the flower appear much less dense, which is nice, but they are beginning to look slightly raggedy now they are fading. As the flowers do start to fade they are taking on a slightly claret tone to the purple, which is lovely.  The separated spokes makes this more delicate and airy than the more dense balls of other varieties, which I suppose is good in terms of variety although I think I prefer the dense balls slightly more myself.

I think this shows the true solid thickness of the massive stem of white giant.  More of
a tree than an allium, with a handy bee attached

As usual the bees love a good allium

The second variety to make an appearance was white giant.  With this one the clue is in the name.  They are white, they are giant.  The balls themselves are bigger and the stems are so thick, and not to mention tall!  A solid pair of scissors will be needed to hack those stems down when they are finished.  These are of the dense ball type, but pure driven white in colour, which is a nice change as everything else out allium-wise was purple.  These show up the bees particularly nicely, I know that seems an odd thing to consider, but their little yellow and black stripey jackets contrast against the white a treat.

I used to think alliums should be purple but actually the white contrasts really well, and actually shows up the bees more.  The flowers are very evenly spread across the ball

Got to love a cheeky bug snuggled in amongst the flowers.  This shows the way the unknown original variety opens, in a very solid way

Lastly but not least, we have my originals.  These have definitely multiplied as I now have about five flower heads when I believe only three original bulbs were purchased.  This is all good as far as I am concerned, the more flowery balls the better in my eyes!  I used to think I had bought the most boring type of allium as it is standard purple, however having bought a few more varieties I can now fully appreciate their charms.  They are very solid, and very purple.  Rather than the airy fairy quality of the rosenbachianum, these are tightly packed, and its this density that allows you to appreciate the subtle differences in colour between each individual flower.  Plus, these are the bees favourite, don't ask me why!  These also open very differently to the rosenbachianum.  All the unopened green buds are exposed and then each one individually pops out until the whole ball fills out, so its interesting to watch.

Unlike the rosenbachianum this one has very close together flowers and comes out in a progressive way, making most definitely a ball

A view across some of the alliums, with the veg patch behind.
I haven't the room to spread it out

With these three varieties almost over I now look forward to hopefully seeing a red mohican or two, and some sphaerocephalon, am so excited about those!  What this does reveal though is that when you go to a garden show and all the alliums are out together its very misleading as when grown in the garden they all come out at different times!

Seeds that would not grow - rudbekia, staircase and scabious black night

Examples of seedlings that did perform

It is very tempting when covering one's gardening activities, to focus on the joys, the triumphs, the real successes.  Sometimes I feature a real disappointment, generally involving a slug or my blundering mother.  But today I think is the moment to focus on the real disasters, growing experiences I can take absolutely no swell of pride from.  Lets focus on all the seed I planted which didn't bother to come up, at all.

I have been keeping the barren little pots of soil in the garage indefinitely in the hope that something might eventually find it fit to make an appearance, but this weekend I officially gave up and have evicted them.  If anything chooses to germinate now it will be in the middle of my veg bed and I won't be best pleased.

Staircase: I bought these after seeing them in a garden I visited last summer.  Strange plants these, with the stalk emerging from the centre of the flower below giving the appearance of flower balls pierced by a large stick.  Or it would, had a single one of the seeds I sowed germinated.  I sowed these ages ago, they were amongst the first probably in February time and not one seed from the two pots ever germinated.

I know I have included pictures of growing seedlings but empty pots of soil just aren't that interesting

Rudbekia: Again I sowed two pots of these at the same time as my first batch of sunflowers.  Sunflowers have germinated and been eaten, been sowed, germinated and are several inches tall and still not one rudbekia has germinated.  I even did another pot and stuck it outside in case the balmy temperatures in the garage had prevented germination, but no.  However one gets these to grow, Im clearly not doing it.

Scabious Black night: I suspected I would have a problem here as I collected these myself and then sowed them at the same time as some shop bought ones of a different colour.  They did not look the same so whatever I collected I don't think was the seed.  Oops.

Tomato Losetto: I sowed three little pots of these and kept them on my bedroom windowsill.  Nothing ever grew.  I suspect the reason these seeds were being given away free is that they were old and therefore they haven't germinated.  That could just be me being cynical, but I have my suspicions.

Aquilegia: I really don't know what I did wrong here but not only have seedlings in my pots been very few and far between, but they have taken forever.  I can't help but notice that plants in the garden have germinated, grown and flowered in the time it has taken mine to pop up a few little leaves.  Maybe they shouldn't have been grown indoors?  I don't know but these have truly been a disaster.  Hopefully the seed I have left will still be good for next year and I can have another go.

The rest of the pot graveyard belonged to zinnia seeds that didn't ever sprout.  However to focus on these would be wrong I feel because they are picky and require spacious accomodation when growing.  Its very easy to spot a seed that hasn't germinated when it is the only one in the pot, less so when it is amongst others.

One of the other seeds I have found difficult to grow is panicular elegans,  I have got a few seedlings, but it has not been keen.  Also I definitely think sowing sweet peas needs to be done early.  My very last batch produced a success rate of less than fifty percent, where as my earlier sowings were more around ninety percent.

Tomato varieties - heritage, novelty and red ones

Some of my many tomato plants, there are many more being kept elsewhere.  And just watered hence the dampness.
I wish my plants looked a bit more orderly and attractive

As I said previously tomato plants are up there amongst my favourites.  Maybe its that tangy aroma, maybe its the devilish yellow stain they adorn the fingers with on close contact, maybe its the constant production of a salad addition, but whatever it is, the purchasing is a highlight of my year.

I always go back to the same garden centre which keeps all the vegetable plants in a proper little greenhouse, it adds to the buying experience.  Last year I bought quite a few varieties, but weirdly despite going back to the same place, they had completely different varieties this year, lots of heritage and novelty ones, which always appeal to me so I was happy.  I bought far more plants than last year, I always think you can't ever have too many tomatoes, and I aways want one of each variety so I went all out.  So much so that the guy on the till felt the need to tell me I would have a lot of tomatoes.

I ummed and ahhed about when to go and get them, but chose to go a couple of weeks ago as I was worried it was getting late in the day.  Glad I did, because I went back the very next weekend to pick up some cheeky extra beans and the greenhouse was virtually bare.  The locusts had literally been through, admittedly I was one, but some serious buying went on in that week!

The plants aren't doing anything of particular note at the second, but you may be interested in what kinds of tomatoes I can expect to be chowing down on over the summer, so here's a quick run through. All information is what I have gleamed from the label.

The first red alert tomatoes forming, clearly these are going to be an
interesting shape

Red Alert : This produces small tomatoes on an outdoor bush.  They should have superb flavour.

Black Russian:  This is a heritage variety.  I am a sucker for anything that claims to be old and proper traditional.  This will produce medium-sized mahogany brown fruits, with an acidic and sweet flavour.

Black cherry: You may notice a theme here.  I bought anything that had black in the name, I don't know why, the thought of a black tomato is not exactly an appealing one!  Anyway this has purpley dark fruits, I did not take note of any flavour.

Shirley F1: Old shirley is a favourite of mine, I have grown her many times and from memory she is a good doer.  This is a heavy cropper with 'excellent' flavour, their words not mine.

Patio tomato: Im not sure this is exactly a variety so much as a location, you wouldn't name one 'grows great in sunny spot' would you? But maybe this is.  I find this a bizarre creature, a bushy dwarf, so short with lots of side shoots, so two things I have not come to expect from tomatoes.  It does however have high yields.

Tigerella: Another heritage variety with a fabulous name! This should be in a bond film rather than the garden.  This should be a heavy early cropper and the real thrill is the fruit should be stripey, hence the tiger reference in the name.  I am always wary when flavour is described as 'pleasing', especially when coupled with a 'firm texture'.  Nobody wants a firm texture.  But we shall see, im more than happy to be surprised.

Mountain Pride: This is a beefstake with excellent flavour.  I have never managed to ripen a beefstake, so the flavour may be completely irrelevant.

These beauties are tumbling tigers, I have hopes they will be delicious

Tumbling Tiger: I have two of these because the mother wanted one for herself.  Why she couldn't just amuse herself looking after my plant I don't know.  This is a novelty variety, a brand new bush with improved flavour.  Seeing as this is also called tiger i suspect they are talking an improved flavour from tigerella.

Harbinger: This is a heritage variety that is really, really, seriously old.  1910 kind of old.  One would hope that after all that time in existence, it was a good one.

Moneymaker: One of the few on this list I have grown before.  The mother describes this variety as one you wouldn't grow yourself.  I knew that, but still managed to put it in the basket.  At least it will help bolster the stocks.

Supersweet 100: Again grew it last year.  Think this one pretty much does what it says on the tin, sweet.

Ambrosia: A sneaky last minute addition when I went back for beans the next weekend, the name appealed more than anything.  This produces fruits which are distinctive, sweet and flavourful.

Tomato plants Ildi and supersweet 100

Clearly these are not from this, otherwise my tomato plants would be seriously overachieving, but this is what I am hoping to emulate again 

It may sound surprising considering the wealth of beautifully flowering plants there are in the world, but tomatoes are one of my favourite plants.  They completely take me back to my childhood when my granddad had a whole greenhouse exclusively for the growing of tomatoes.  Oh those were the days.  He even had a deckchair in there to read the paper in the glorious warmth.

My tomatoes are not so lucky, instead slumming it on the patio, which to be fair, is pretty sheltered and toasty and we do alright by them.  Can't say we were inundated last year but then I had to put them in a shady corner for a good month of the year because of the roof requiring work which no doubt had an impact on production.

Buying my tomato plants is one of the big moments of my gardening year.  I love it.  I always seem to go back to the same place to get my plants, part of the tradition I guess, but this year a few extra cheeky plants have snuck in to the mix from other sources.

The mother plays a lot of badminton, and at one of these sporting gatherings that she goes to one of the men turned up with a whole host of tomato plants.  The mother knows I am not overly fond of yellow tomatoes, it just seems wrong, tomatoes should be red.  This man seemed to have an exclusively yellow  ones, as you do.  However the mother shares my 'what the hell' attitude as they were only cheap and bought two to spice up our tomato lives.

I can't wait to have a constant steady supply of these all summer

And of course once she had broken that tomato plant seal she couldn't help but pick up another she spied outside a local greengrocers the same week.  I have had all three plants for just over a month now, quite early in my eyes, but I have potted them up and they are romping away.

The last tomatoes to come from an unexpected source appeared via the father.  Evidently word has got round that I am in the market for tomatoes as everybody is bringing them home!  A lady turned up at his work with teeny tiny tomato seedlings which she was hoping people would have as she had too many.  How it is possible to have too many I don't know.  So we took a couple of pots off her hands.  They were far far too tiny to go outside so these are currently residing in the garage.  A couple have died as seedlings tend to do, but I should get a few out of it.  Only problem is I don't know the variety again.  Oh tomato surprises.

My first three plants all potted up and raring to go! Two Ildi and one Supersweet 100

And finally to the ones I have grown myself.  i have never attempted to grow tomatoes from seed.  The great man that was my grandfather always bought plants and I figure he knew best.  From the results of my first attempt I now have evidence to prove that he did.  I won a packet of losetto tomato seed from the UK gardening programme Gardener's World which was giving them away so that viewers could join the presenter Monty in 'growing together' tomatoes apparently resistant to blight.  They were also apparently resistant to growing because not one seed germinated. I always think that if not even one seed was willing than you have dodgy seed.  I haven't entirely given up on them, but I think `i probably should.

So there we have it, three plants and potentially more to come and I haven't even started on my garden centre purchases, and there are an awful lot of them!  But I will leave that for another time.

Alliums - from sprout to bud

The first peek of allium snout back in January, they snuck up when I wasn't looking

Last year at Hampton Court I decided to seriously add to my stocks of alliums.  The mother bought three bulbs last time we went several years ago now, and we like them equally so there was little disagreement to buying more.  Who wouldn't like a ball of flower dancing about on a long stalk.

The allium patch early in the year, you can see the pale washed out succulent variety just appearing, I neglected to photograph it again so I can't show you the bird damage

The flower heads emerging.  You can tell these are related to onions, and you can just see my netting in the background

I have no idea what the original bulbs were, but at the show I bought Rosenbachianum, white giant and red mohican. I bunged them in holes and waited for the magic to happen.  Theoretically I don't have the right soil for alliums, but it has never held us back before so I had high hopes.  The first sign of life came in the form of leaves in mid January.  One variety had shiny leaves while the other had what I would describe as being succulant, juicy looking leave, light grey, and to be perfectly honest, rather floppy.  These succulant leaves were promptly butchered by something.  I assumed slug damage so slug peleted accordingly.  When this didn't have any affect suspicions turned to a fat pidgeon who had taken to strutting round the garden in that area.  The pesky bird had taken a fancy to pecking my leaves.  In order to prevent this I had to net the whole area which seemed to have the desired effect.  So there you go, pidgeons like alliums, who knew.  The one downside of protecting the leaves like this is the netting made the leaves a bit cramped and the went weirdly wrinkly, like somebody who had been in the bath too long.

The white giant bud just after splitting, and about to start popping out the individual little flowers

The first little flower is out! This is obviously a purple one

In early April the fat flower buds started appearing in amongst the leaves and quickly shot up on their spindly stems.  At this point I became aware that there only appeared to be two varieties distinguishable, but I bought four so was a little confused.  Anyway the buds ripened and finally started splitting a couple of weeks ago.  I love the way alliums do this.  The skin on the buds starts drying out and becomes thin and stretched like paper, before finally splitting.  Then a tuft of flowers emerges before the whole ball fills out at a later date. They don't all come out like this of course, the ones the mother had before completely emerge and then slowly flower over time.

That lovely stage when the casing is all dry and papery and starts splitting

This one came out in a lovely tuft, like a paintbrush, with the flowers all curled up in concentric spirals and already open when the shuck, shucked. Pretty!

And thats where im going to leave it, what a tease.  Il be back with pictures of the individual varieties another time.

Vegetable patch update - planting peas and broad bean flowers

The last time I featured my vegetable patch the broad beans were a foot high and starting to really enjoy my manured soil and romp away.  Since then the patch has received a new intake of occupants, some support has been required, and we have flowers!  And where we have flowers we should see beans so its all exciting.

The vegetable patch with two batches of peas in situ

Since putting in my first batch of broad beans my two sowings of peas also reached planting out stage so joined their bean buddies in the bed.  I sowed two types of pea; a sugar snap variety, and just a plain old pea.

I love the flashes of pink and purple at the base of each flower, I think they are
actually rather attractive just as flowers without the promise of impending beans

Last year I bought sugar snap peas ready grown from the garden centre but I didn't find it a terribly effective approach.  For one thing I had far too many plants, forty or more, and by the time I got them in, the roots were in a terrible tangle and I had to give up on fully separating them out and plant them in clumps.  This led to one hell of a knot later on and a real struggle to find the peas to pick.  So this year I have sown my own.  I only had about thirteen plants come up, so while this appears like I will have far less in the way of produce, it should all be far more manageable and I wont find huge old gnarled peas buried in thickets during picking time. 

My sugar snap pea of choice is Jessy, and I have sown two batches, one has already been in the patch a few weeks and the other is now approaching the point of planting out.  I am hoping this will give me a sustained pea season.  The other pea is Kelvedon Wonder and I have just the one batch at the second because space is a little limited.  Really sowing peas and beans from seed is so easy there isn't any excuse not do it, unless you can't get a certain variety of seed.

I particularly like the black spots that are only visible from the front

So I put the first batches of sugar snap and pea in a few weeks ago at the beginning of May, its pretty straightforward, dig hole, stuff in and cover so I wont go into detail.  They have grown on nicely, reaching about a foot tall. Peas are known for needing a little support in life through canes.  Being a little thrifty, last year the mother thought fuchsia sticks would suffice.  They did not.  The whole lot had devolved into an intertwined knot long before I finally got round to buying proper canes and sorting it out.  Not this year, canes already in hand I have already started staking and everything is under control.  My only slight problem with the peas is the writing wore off my labeling sticks and I can't tell the difference between the two types of peas.  Now that they have grown on a little more I think Im right in saying that the proper pea has darker, larger, leathery leaves.  But still not a hundred percent sure.

This variety seems particularly pinky in comparison to the one I grew last year
who knew the veg patch could be so pretty

I hadn't staked the broad beans as they have such thick and robust stems they give you the impression they can withstand life on their own.  And they can, until you get some exceptionally heavy rain like we did this week and then the whole lot come tumbling down like felled trees.  If not attended to quickly the stems fix bent over and they is no hope in getting them back upright, so I was out there this weekend getting the stakes in.  Its a little less attractive but it does keep everything in order.

The beans have progressed well since the top photo - the promise of beans
draws ever nearer 

The most exciting development so far is the first batch of broad beans have burst into flower.  I know the point of beans is to grow them for their produce, but I really like the flowers.  I think the colouring, white with a tinge of pink and purple and a great big black dot, is really attractive and more than worthy in their own right as flowers.  Of course I am still hoping they will turn into beans, but I am enjoying this stage.  I am making sure to give them plenty of water as Im now aware that beans are fond of a good drink.

Organised and freshly-staked beans, with a sneaky clematis in the back

So that's where I am up to at the moment, flowers, happy peas and I popped my second batch of broad beans in the other week as well.  I haven't seen any bees buzzing around the beans but hopefully they are doing their job behind my back and I am well on my way to a solid batch of broad beans.

Butterfly in the garage

Im not sure what plant I bunged it on, looks like a lily! But I think its a rhododendron

I would have thought that the garage would have been a rather sterile environment devoid of bugs and creepy crawlies, but I have been proved wrong.  Earlier this week on a watering visit to my cucumbers I discovered - to my absolute horror - a humungous spider sitting in my washing up bowl full of pots.  I would say in size it rivalled a small mouse with long solidly built legs and an enormous bottom.

Isn't he glorious? With his lovely curly proboscis and antennae

Normally Im quite happy to help a spider out, and by out I mean the window, but when they get over a certain size I am really not keen.  And so I have just left her there, sitting in my bowl, and as long as she doesn't try and run up my arm or something, this situation suits me fine.  I also discovered one of those mini slugs happily sliding his way through my second batch of incredibles.  This plant is clearly even more tasty than peppers to the slug, but really did think the seedlings would be relatively safe until I got them outside.

He had lovely speckled undersides to his wings, the only part I properly saw as he was hiding his true colours

More interestingly a couple of weeks ago I found this beauty hanging around on the edge of a pot.  I can only imagine it snuck in when the garage door was open somewhen and became trapped.  Maybe it was looking for a spot to lay its eggs, in which case my seedlings are not it.  Either way I helped the little guy outside.  Rather amicably he hopped aboard a stick when I profered it and put up little fight.  Im not sure where butterfly's are happiest sitting, I imagine something like a buddleia, but I haven't got one of those so instead he had to go on one of the bushes.  I think it might have been a green-veined white butterfly, which is pretty common across the UK, but I am no expert.

I did think he had really veiny wings, which makes sense if he is what I
think he might be

Im not sure it was exactly happy as it wasn't keen to fly off, so I imagine it had been in the garage for a while.  It was beautiful though and an opportunity to see one up close.  He has a lovely curly proboscis and a beautiful pale green underside to his wings .  He didn't really open them very wide so I couldn't get a picture of his full design, but it was a lovely treat to see him in all his glory.

*spider update* after sitting in my washing up bowl for well over a week, on my visit to the garage today I discovered the spider had gone.  Im now a little afraid to go in there, it might get me.  Its a serious concern.