Wild Fuschia!

Weather: Warm with some cloud but the sun has reappeared for at least part of the day at last! 22C max.

This week's harvest: three lettuces (two Tom Thumb, one Pablo), rocket - several big pickings, perpetual spinach (a couple of pounds) from last year's plants which I have now cut down, mint, basil, parsley, dill, chives, two artichokes.

I don't like the blousy fuschias you see in all the garden centres but I do love the 'wild' fuschia which you see as hedging in Cornwall and Ireland. I also have a very delicate pale pink version which I inherited with the garden. At the moment though my red one is startlingly beautiful - particularly in the early morning when this photo was taken. I particularly like this plant as is was grown from a cutting taking from the garden where I grew up. I often grow plants because they remind me of people and places and this is a particulary potent example!


At the same time as I took the photo of the fuschia I photographed the Euphoria (Fire Glow) wet with dew. I am in two minds about this plant this year. It is stunning - but its very 'orange' colour makes it difficult to place. (See the photo in my last post) This year, now it has grown so large (and I was warned that it could be unruly....how right they were) it has been 'shouting' at the pinks and purples around it. It is also shading my new Rose (Mutabilis) which is doing really well and blends quite well colourwise. The Euphorbia remains on my mental list of potential plants to move next year.....

In the vegetable garden - just as the slugs, encouraged by the huge amount of rain we've had in the last fortnight, were beginning to become a nuisance - the third pack of nematodes I'd ordered dropped through the letter box! I watered them in two days ago and have been trying to keep the soil moist to get them established. The beans were really beginning to suffer - I lost half a dozen plants from either end of the row (the slugs seem to hide in the walls an path edges and eat the first plants they get to first!) I also lost a whole young courgette plant.

Meanwhile the greenhouse is doing very nicely - the tomatoes are about 3ft tall, there is a flower on one of the aubergine plants and the cucumber plant is beginning to grow well. I have had leaves from the basil and the french marigold seedlings are ready to be transplanted. The chilis aren't doing great things yet...but there's time.

I planted one of my Rosemary cuttings out in the herb garden and took out the overgrown parent plant that has been slowly dying back. At the same time I removed some Sweet Cicely (which seeds itself like mad) and opened up a big space. In it I planted a tricolour sage that I bought at Waterperry Gardens and two chili seedlings. I haven't 'nematoded' this bed so I suspect slugs and snails will make short work of these. I will try sawdust as a barrier tonight.

The long term weather forecast for the summer isn't very chili friendly - after a warm June they are expecting a wet July and August....booo hisss!!