Midsummer

Just a little trip about the garden at the very end of June ..

strawberries ripening in jam jars to protect them from our birdy friends,

valerian towering high above the fence and everything else,

feverfew in full flower now

and lavender just starting to pop.














Just been looking up 'cuckoo spit' .. you can see some on the lavender in the photo above, but we also have a little on the elder. Will have to look out for the adult froghoppers.. I like learning something new, and I like to have an answer ready when the little'un asks me something!

There's so much doing at this time of year and its such a joy to be out in the fresh air working with the plants and enjoying the sunshine. You can really 'feel' the wheel of the year turning over Midsummer as all the burgeoning and freshness and growing gives way to fullness, culmination, maturity. It happens imperceptibly and overnight, it seems and suddenly its time to be harvesting.

Growing

I last posted just as April was arriving, but here we are just about to bid her farewell .. what's been happening in between? A lot of rain, and some very high winds (but then you knew that, right, if you're in the UK?!!) and a lot of growing!

All the wet has really exacerbated my problems with the little munchers who have been wreaking havoc in my growhouse .. this week I finally decided to bring in the peas, beans, sunflowers and courgette plants that had been seriously gnawed and were more hole than leaf :-( They are all perking up considerably back behind glass on the sunny recovery windowsill.

To make room on said sunny windowsills for the beleagured ones, I've put out my unexpectedly enormous quantity of baby tomato plants, as the slugs and snails don't seem as interested in tomatoes. This was a little experiment of mine, because I'd (inadvertantly) left out the last of my Ildi tomatoes on their plants in the growbags on the flat roof outside bedroom window last season - and there they hung all winter come wind, snow, storm or whatever. And there they were still in March, and several people told me to squish the dried out fruits onto kitchen roll and see if I could grow them. So I did! I put differing amounts of compost beneath and above (not really knowing what I was doing) inside eggbox lids not really expecting much .. and you've never seen anything like it. Germinated all over the place and what's more, every single one I transplanted (into its own little loo roll holder of compost) has taken. I have about 60 babies in trays of 5 or 6, all over the house!

Here are some in the coldframe, which seems to have fared better in terms of the illicit munchers. Also baby dill and marigold plants. And the start of a box of salad (against all the odds!)

They are a wonderful tomato, pretty little yellow plum-shaped cherry size fruits and really heavily laden plants. You can put them in hanging baskets or grow them up canes. I hope I will be able to find them all good homes to go to. Meanwhile, my 'proper' tomatoes, which I sowed in February, are busy flowering, would you believe .. a bit of regular nettle infusion has done wonders!

Also flowering at the moment are the strawberry plants outside, and we'll soon have the lovely chive blossoms too.

I've done better with the sweetpeas this year, soaking them helped and getting them enough light quickly enough and pinching them out at the right time (thanks to my wonderful neighbour who is expert at these things and doesn't mind a bumbling novice's barrage of questions!) Previous years they've been really leggy, so I'm quite pleased that I'm starting to get the hang of it. Won't risk these outside till the weather sorts itself out condsiderably.

April showers are magical .. every year it amazes me just how much everything GROWS in just a few weeks! Usually in March I look at the herb garden and think there's lots of gaps and I'll need a few more plants to pop in here and there. Then by the end of April everything is burgeoning. And although I love to see the flowers, there is something super special in April about all that lush bright green growth, unsullied and full of promise and newness and freshness. Every day this month I've stood by the back door looking out at the garden in the rain and its kind of visibly grown in front of my eyes. Fantastic!

Nature

Nature is a wonderful thing. Visiting my somewhat neglected roof garden, I was amazed at how much was going on up there, mother nature left to her own devices and just doing her thing!

In particular, I got a handful of huge plumptious ripe strawberries to eat still warm from the sunshine...




... these grew from runners which planted themselves into neighbouring pots, giving me a tangle of strawberry plants with lots of luscious berries. Yum!

Strawberry

Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) is a helpful herb for the skin and digestive system. The astringent properties of the root and/or leaves are useful in diarrhoea and the fruit is recommended for feverish conditions and as a cure for rheumatic gout.

Culpepper suggests strawberry as a cooling remedy for wheals on the face and hands, which is supported in the traditional practice of running a cut strawberry over the face straight after washing to whiten the skin and remove slight sunburn.

A cool, moist, astringent, tonic herb with mild diuretic and laxative effects.

Gather the leaves in early summer and dry for infusions.
The roots can be lifted in autumn for use in decoctions.




PLEASE NOTE: These notes on the history and use of herbs have been compiled for general interest and are not intended as medical advice, for which you should consult a professional herbalist.

BIBLIOGRAPY:
'A Modern Herbal' Mrs M. Grieve FRHS ed. Mrs C. F. Leyel (1973)
'The Herb Society's Complete Medicinal Herbal' Penelope Ody MNIMH (1993)
'RHS Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses' Deni Brown (2002)

Sunflowers and Strawberries

I know I've posted twice already this month about the Sunflowers and Strawberries.. but you're going to want to see them again, just look!








I was so relieved to see my sunflowers after the buffeting they must have taken.. they are sheltered on two sides by brick wall and chimney stack and I think they were lucky that the direction the strong winds came in was shielded. My tomatoes and sunflowers get to share this best sunny sheltered spot. The first bloom is still going strong but now the others are opening to join it .. I was so thrilled!

The first strawberry is turning a lovely red (as well as doubling in size!) - I have carefully placed the clump containing the large red strawberry inside a glass jar, so that our resident blackbird doesn't get to dine on it before I do.

Strawberries and Sunflowers

Forgot to show you these, which I took while my internet was down last week - the first sunflower of the year, and the strawberries' first blush..

Strawberries and Sunflowers

Its a glorious morning! I have just been up on the roof with my morning cuppa to check on my garden and I'm pleased to report that the veg all made it through the night. The little windbreak round the beans seems to be working, the tomato plants I planted out are perky and the de-cloched carrots seem to have recovered themselves nicely. Its so warm, and the strawberries and sunflower heads are forming .. roll on summer!!