A sunny day with a cold Easterly breeze . I got the first lot of my potatoes planted . One small quantity of Pink Fir Apple , nice for salads and the other ones are Maris Bard I think . I lost the label and cant remember the name , but they are first earlies . I am still waiting for some Charlottes to be delivered .
I was delighted to see three Red Kites flying over into the next field where a local farmer had just been muck spreading . Magnificent bird of prey ! Not a terribly good picture I,m afraid , but now I know they are here again , I will be ready with my camera for next time they fly over .
My daughter is getting interested in Herbs and wanted to know which herbs I am growing . So I promised her that I would have a bit of a tidy up in my herb garden and see what might be coming up .
I had quite a difficult job of pulling up those blooming Stinging Nettles , my hand is quite sore with stings .
I am glad I cleared them away though , as coming up beneath them is my lovey Variegated Lemon Balm . Held overhead in the shower to release it's scent or make a refreshing Lemon Balm Tisane .
Also Sweet Woodruff is showing her pretty leaves . This is also spreading fast amongst everything , but it is another herb that I love , for as it's leaves begin to dry , there comes such a lovely fragrance of almonds . This is very nice to stuff into tiny herb pillows , to put in drawers or for sweet dreams placed under my pillow .
Oregano useful in so many recipes I love this fragrance !
Thyme !
I could not be without this in my garden , for both culinary and medicinal use .
Five clumps of Thyme , because the bees and I love it so much !
Spearmint running free ! I love it and cant get enough of it !
Elsewhere in the garden I have Peppermint , Pineapple mint Corsican Mint , Bowles mint, Penny royal mint , Chocolate mint . I love them all !
Variegated Artemisia or Mugwort ...why the hell did I ever buy this thug of a plant ? Oh I know , it looked so pretty with it's variegated leaves in it's tiny 3"pot at the garden centre ! They shouldn't even sell this wretched plant . I will have another go at pulling it all out again tomorrow !
Every year I try to get it all out , it is a real nightmare of a plant !
In fact it can actually give you nightmares . I tried it ! I put some under my pillow and it's true , it does ! Horrible !
Some people say that it can help you remember your dreams , I would rather not have this herb in my garden at all !
Rant over .
More lovely Oregano and a very sad old lavender bush .
It needs to be replaced now , it's just become way too straggly and woody.
In amongst the Mint, Oregano and Lavender is a beautiful old variety of a rose .
This is how it looks in the summer .
I really have to get in there and tidy up my herb garden.
The rope ? Oh ! That is there to slow me down as I go up that path to the greenhouse . It can be slippery at times . I dash about far too much !
I love Rosemary and have it growing in several places in my garden .
Verbascum Mullein has found it's way into the herb garden. I will leave it , because once again the Bees and I love it so much .
We started to get a bonfire going , but decided the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and didn't want to annoy our neighbours .
No risk to harming hedgehogs , as we started the fire from scratch, from the ground , bringing in branches and as I said , we changed our mind and let it go out in the end .
This is where we are going to create a much better and more productive Fruit bush zone .
I,d love to have a proper Fruit cage over it all too . Something for the future . At the moment we have three or four Blackcurrant bushes and Raspberries which are just out of control popping up all over the place . I love Blackcurrants , the queen of English fruiting bushes in my opinion .
I have a couple of Gooseberry bushes waiting to be planted out , they will have to be put into bigger pots and be planted out next Autumn hopefully as I cant see this being ready anytime soon !
The Cowslips are flowering , so pretty and Primroses down the lane .
We hope our ground dries out enough to be able to plant potatoes soon. It’s been lovely and sunny for a few days so fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteNice post and pictures. I'll hope to be planting my potatoes next week. Lucky you seeing three red kites, they're wonderful birds. xx
ReplyDeleteI know all about out of control blackcurrants. They started as a nice idea, now they are everywhere.
ReplyDelete