Weeds

There are parts of my garden where weeds are encouraged and they are thriving this year, all over the garden.  The weather we are experiencing is obviously perfect for the weeds, wet and not that warm.  Some of them were up to my waist in places!

I finally managed to get out and launch an attack today, in between taking the youngest to the toilet, getting the hammock out, sorting out DVDs and sharpening pencils, a mama's work is never done.

I have not been in my garden much recently, not to have a good look at it anyway.  I have been running the gauntlet of the rain and the very overgrown paths to collect leaves for salad most days.

I knew that there was no way that I could weed the whole garden so I started halfway up and worked back towards the house.  I pruned, I pulled and slowly my very small vegetable plants emerged from the weed jungle.  They were bigger than I expected considering the weather and the competition for light and sun that they were waging with the weeds.

I have lived in my house for nine and half years, this is my tenth summer.  When we moved in we had a lawn and not much else.  That has gone completely and when I look at the garden properly I now immensely satisfied with what we have done to it in that time.  It is a haven for wildlife.  Very overgrown in places but cultivated in others.

A honeysuckle plant that we moved about eight years ago, as a straggly stalk, is now an immense covering on one of the fences.  The smell of it today was divine, my youngest who was in the garden with me, commented on it and, repeatedly returned to it to give it a smell.

Currently I have growing, beetroot, carrots, turnips, potatoes, garlic, kale, cabbage, spinach, courgette, cucumber, lettuce, mizuna, land cress, radish, rocket and red mustard.  We have a few fruit bushes and I harvested just over a pound in blackcurrants, which was about half the berries, the rest are not ripe yet.  I always record my time in the garden and bizarrely I harvested them on the exact same day last year!

So the weeds are less now, but I need to tackle the top of the garden, that can wait for another day...........