Quick! Catch it!

I saw the sun today! I did, really! It kept coming out from behind a cloud and encouraged me to weed the front of the blackcurrants. I still have to get in behind but that is a much bigger job and I didn’t have time for it today.

Not only did I see the sun but it was warm and although still windy it was much less than yesterday. This has helped the garden grow. The dahlias are looking magnificent! Something is eating at the flower petals but I haven’t been able to catch it. The flowers still look OK so I hope I find the culprit before it does too much damage. The self sown nasturtiums look superb against the borage. I love blue and orange as I think I’ve mentioned before. They are complements so it is not so surprising that they go well together. The borage is having a hard time standing up in the breezy weather. More tomatoes are ripening and the courgettes are still providing pickings. Something has eaten half my dill! Well either that or the young plants have rotted off. Does this happen to dill? I bought a dill plant earlier this year and that too rotted off after being in the ground for a week or two! Most disappointing. The blueberries are looking really yummy and I picked four today! Not a lot but over time they will add up; just like the blackcurrants.

The bedding begonias in a pot are doing well and like being in a semi shaded position and the self sown nasturtium is climbing up the hazel. A young blackbird has just taken a bath in this picture. It is funny watching them as they fight over who will go first just like children!

And tomorrow, will the sun be here again? I shall keep my fingers crossed!

Books for when you can’t garden!

Today I picked the first cucumber and it was quite a respectable size though not very thick! However it is a start! I’m hoping the others will swell up with all this rain and make a reasonable size. The tomatoes are starting to show some colour so hopefully they will ripen without succumbing to anything horrid! And the yellow courgette has two good sized courgettes which will soon be ready to pick.

Apart from that nothing new is happening and the weather has been too awful to do anything. I desperately need to weed, especially around the blackcurrants but I think we need a bit more sun first as the soil here can be very claggy when it’s wet.

So what does one do when one can’t garden? Among the things that I do is reading and often I’ll pick up a book on gardening to extend my knowledge and give me ideas. My favourite books are:

Your Kitchen Garden by Mitchell Beasley Publishers Ltd. This is an old book but I find it invaluable for all kinds of basic knowledge about fruit and vegetables.

The Complete Book of Herbs by Lesley Bremness. I love this book and it gives me a lot of insight into herbs and what one can do with them as well as cultivation.

Step by Step Container Gardening by Stephanie Donaldson. This is a really useful book for someone like me with a minute garden. Pots and containers are the answer to getting more space!

Crops in Pots by Bob Purnell which is a modern book and similar to the previous book. Good ideas!

The RHS book on Pests and Diseases. A very useful book but there is such a wealth of information that I usually end up confused!

The RHS Garnener’s Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers which gives me lots of ideas and makes me yearn for acres to plant in!

And last but not least. A very old copy of the Reader’s Digest book Food from your Gardening. Very basic, down to earth advice and the answer to lots of my problems.

So what gardening books do you recommend? Do you have a ‘bible’ that you wouldn’t be without? Do you find gardening books inspiring? I’d love to know!

Rain, rain go away!

The rain is getting boring! And what is worse it threatens to ruin the tomato crop. Too much rain and they will get blight just like last year! However the flowers in the garden seem to be doing very well. The Gazanias are flowering well even though there is limited sun. They have to be dead headed regularly! The Cosmos are amazing and although the rain batters them about they spring back with remarkable vigour and look as lovely as ever. Again they too need dead heading regularly if I want continuous flowers. I am still picking courgettes and soon I will be able to pick cucumbers. Well one at least! And one of my yellow courgettes is nearly ready to be picked. But apart from that nothing is going on in my garden. It is wet and dreary and I’m going to fall back on a good book!