June, before and after

Here are some comparison pics, taken respectively on May 31st and then June 16th, when I came back from two weeks holiday. My kind neighbour had taken on the watering duties for me.

Mangetout peas - Golden Sweet on the left and Bijou on the right - with runner beans, calendula, and sunflowers. In the growbags, are New Zealand spinach, and courgettes (out of view).

Lettuces: I missed their prime, they were already starting to consider bolting when we got back. They're Webb's Wonder; very tasty, and heart up beautifully, but unfortunately appealing to the slugs and snails - unlike the Lollo, which they don't touch.






Purple Cherokee tomatoes:





Flower bed - Aquilegia and geraniums. These aquilegia are long-flowering; they've been in bloom since early May at least. I thought they'd be finished when I got back from holiday, but they're still flowering now, more than a month later!





Calendula - which turns out to be giant calendula, the tallest of them reaching above my waist-height. Although very colourful, they're taking up rather too much space; also, they have no calendula scent. Next year I plan to grow Calendula Officinalis, so I can collect the petals for herby purposes. These ones are very attractive to flea beetle, quite usefully, acting as traps; I've tapped out the beetles into a bucket of soapy water. Nothing else seems to have suffered from them, so perhaps the calendula lured them, though there were no holes in the flowers or leaves.

Some more general pics from June 16th:

Bijou mangetout; they get even bigger than that. Very tasty, sliced and stir-fried.



Lychnis Coronaria, 'rose campion' - grown from seeds that I sneakily purloined from the garden of my old doctor's surgery. I need to give less space to flowers next year, but these have given a great splash of colour all summer.



The roses:


Needing a haircut: