Lots of photos

Here's my life in photos for the last month.

Here's a bouquet of roses, lupins, hydrangea, laurel leaves and St John's wort leaves. 

 

I eventually managed to successfully wrap my cherry tree in a net.

I love my vibrant red poppies, but watch out for burned corneas!

First flowers on my runner beans.

And on my peas, too.

My garage wall, with hanging baskets, climbing rose, and ivy.

First garlic bulb was so tasty--and pungent!

I made eight muffins with these four cherries.  Each muffin got half a cherry.

I planted some cabbage specifically for the chickens.

The main vegetable patch.

First peas!  We've been eating them for dinner every other day or so for the last two weeks.

I bought some strawberry plants on special.  10 for £5:  a steal!

My tomatoes are growing and beginning to flower at last, but my peppers in the foreground are still pretty measly. 

You may have noticed a theme here;  the only fun stuff I've done over the last few weeks has been in my garden!  Other not-so-fun activities have included housework (but don't drop by unexpectedly, ok?), schoolwork, and, er, work. 

Harvesting and planting

Here's the thing.  I can't upload photos at the moment.  I physically have them on a little XD card, but that's where they're staying until my computer problems are sorted.  I've got some photos of a few sewing projects I've been working on I'm looking forward to sharing.

I made a goal to avoid buying vegetables from July onward.  Partner (President of Grocery Shopping), take note.  

I harvested all my garlic.  I could have sworn I planted no more than 60 cloves, but I pulled up 81 bulbs.  I brushed off excess soil and then laid them out on a plastic sheet in the garage.  We had a massive rainstorm which slightly flooded the garage yesterday, but I checked and my garlic was still dry.  

In the now vacated garlic bed I scattered beet seeds and put in another row of peas.  I think I still have time to plant one more batch of peas, and I've got a tiny amount of free space left for them. I also made my first harvest of peas;  I parboiled them in their pods with a few sprigs of fresh mint.  So yummy!

A fifth of my cherries disappeared in mysterious circumstances, leaving me with a grand total of four.  To prevent the others from the same fate, I draped a net and liberally applied clothes pegs to secure it.  When those four ripened to a beautiful bright red, I baked eight muffins, each with half a cherry.  I'm hoping for a bigger harvest next year.

But to make up for it, Franklin and I discovered some wild cherries growing in a little wood in the park.  We found them by accident when we looking for bee orchids and were caught by rain;  we ran to the nearest stand of trees and discovered ripe red cherries.  I picked as many as I could reach and Franklin ate at least half of them.