Oh, the Joys of Summer!

It's been ages since I posted because I've been working hard getting assignments, etc finished so I've purposely not allowed myself get embroiled in blogs. Handed in the last of my assignments last night so now have 2 weeks to prepare for the exam. However, I've given myself today off and have had a lovely day in the garden. I finally started digging up the lawn as promised for ages. True to the principles of 1 foot gardening I dug up an area approximately 1 yard square. OK, it's triangular but so what! The thing is that I keep buying plants without anywhere in particular in mind to plant them so I've ended up with those I can't bear to part with in pots looking progressively sadder and more stressed as time passed so it was about time I found a permanent home for them. So, today was the day. In case you can't see what's in my new bed there's a lavender I rescued from my sister, the thyme came from the same place, 2 scabious plants, 1 blue (horribly potbound) and 1 red, an echinacea and a geranium whose name escapes me at the moment.










The highlight of the day was the robin who dogged my every dig and got lots of worms for his trouble.

My new flowerbed is next to my vegetable beds and will hopefully attract more insects to this part of the garden. I don't know if it's a result of the hard winter we've had but there seems to be a real dearth of insects this year. Pests as well as good 'uns. For instance, there's not a sign of black fly on my broad beans so far this year and the only aphids generally are all indoors. However, I haven't yet seen a ladybird, and neither has the next door neighbour who usually reports on seasonal visitors earlier than us. Wait and see I suppose, and be grateful for the lack of pests :-)

Planted some Greyhound cabbages at the weekend. They're supposed to be fast growing so hopefully we'll have some edible cabbage fairly soon. The seasonal stuff seems to be getting off to a slow start for some reason (probably the same reason as the lack of pests). Broad beans are only starting to form and the cabbages I sowed in the Autumn are still looking positively juvenile. I suppose we can only wait and see.