Good Foundations...

The day of concretion has come at last! The concrete mixer arrived very early (much earlier than we expected!) and we shot out of bed and straight into our wellies to get shovelling. BH was on barrow duty and I was literally up to my wellytops in conc until the Bionic Grandpa arrived with his rake in hand to rescue me. Id love to say that I finished the job off and was responsible for the end product - but I didnt want to get in their way (handy that!) and I retreated to teamaking duty!

After much moving and smoothing we have our first base down and we couldnt be prouder - sad I know - but i cant wait for it to dry so I can put the patio chairs out on it and imagine what it will be like!



Elsewhere, Im glad to say that we have more late colour popping up...



and these are still busting out all over - I wasnt sure at first as the leaves have looked scabby all summer but weve had about 20 courgettes off it and its still going strong - and they taste lovely - much less bitter than the green ones can be.



BH dug up his first potatoes. He's very proud - i think he may end up framing these! I only planted maincroppers this year and Ive been too nervous to dig em up in case they were too small but so far so good...




and at last - the toms are making it from the green house to the table. As usual they'll all come at once. Thank goodness for Tomato salads....and soup...and pasta sauce...and ratatouille (speaking of which has any got a good recipe for this one that will freeze - Ive got to do something with all these courgettes!!!

From Blue to Green...

Since we returned from our getaway weekend everything has been non stop as I head towards the end of term. Ive hardly been in the garden this week...and its given me a case of the mean blues! Ive got the 'my rockets all gone to seed' blues, the 'my flowers seem to have all bloomed at once' blues, the 'I've lost my first crop of gooseberries to the pigeons' blues and to top it all, the 'its July and it wont stop raining' blues! I told you...the mean blues!

I was too blue to even post anything!

Until...we had a brief interlude of sunshine on Saturday and after donning my wellies and heading to the greenhouse I found some reasons to be cheerful!

I bought this little Hosta about a month ago at the Burton Agnes Hall Garden Fair, and it really is little. Its called Mouse Ears and its leaves arent much bigger in reality. In the space of a week it had sent up these beautiful flowers - just what I needed. I've heard of hope in a jar - maybe this is hope in a pot!



On the plot my heart sank again as i saw a cloud of white butterflies, but was lifted when i discovered these Kohl Rabis starting to swell (this was a real treat, because I'd forgotten what I'd planted and I thought they were cabbages!)




Even in the borders where my favourite blossoms seem to have gone as quickly as they arrived, and which now look faded and shabby, there was a nice surprise in store. I planted these beans in here a while ago to see how they would do in the mixed border and they've suddenly decided to go for it.



All in all we had pretty good pickings for the day and my two little helpers were able to load up the basket for teatime. We had kale and courgettes, garlic, peas and of course beetroot. There were plenty of raspberries too to take our minds off the absent gooseberries!



Of course, no sooner were we inside than the rain came again, but now i'm looking on the bright side - no need to water the lawn! And its inspired me to work on this blanket - the colours are inspired by Violas, my favourite flowers - the hope being that it will remind me of Spring when we're in the depths of Winter...plenty of green to keep the blues at bay!