Ceratonia

It was the infants school summer fair on Saturday and I ran the plant stall - sold 100+ of my spare plants. Anything in flower went very quickly. Penstemons were very popular and also sold out straightaway, as did the few shrubs I had. Sold a fair number of ornamental grasses too. Herbs didn't sell so well (maybe because I had fairly common ones like lemon balm, mint, thyme etc) - in previous years they have been popular.

Lessons for next year, I think are to have more things in flower (if I was growing specifically for this fair, I would go for things like Campanula, delphiniums, lupins, Alchemilla mollis etc) and also more things for kids to buy - seemed to be a lot of children who spent 50p on a plant for mum or dad - sold a lot of catmint that way!

At home, it's mostly just a job of keeping on top of weeding and harvesting. At the moment, we have dahlias & sweet peas for the house, although Yasmin is cutting a lot of Californian poppies too. We're eating strawberries & raspberries every day, but gooseberry and first of redcurrants available too. Have used elderflower for sorbet a couple of times. Lots of veg from the garden, too - new potatoes, broad beans, peas, swiss chard, lettuce, radish eaten from the garden yesterday. Onions & garlic ready very soon - just need to dry out a bit. First Courgettes will be ready in a day or two, as well.

Didn't get a huge amount of time this weekend. Managed to plant out/pot up the remaining seedlings, so things like stocks, amaranthus and poppies planted out around the garden. Earthed up the potatoes a bit. Reckon we'll have a great crop this year - lots of rain in May and now plenty of sunshine too.

Sowed the florence fennel, some more basil and swedes and three Chinese vegetables from a poster on A4A. Still a little bit of space in the garden, too. Picked first strawberries. Yum. Picked some gooseberries too - made them into a sauce and served with fried goats cheese slices. Very posh! Lettuce, lots of swiss chard, asparagus, radishes and rhubarb all from the garden at the moment.

David visited from Portugal and brought a large hammock from Brazil. It's getting on for 10ft long, so will have to think hard about where in the garden to put it. Fixed the boys railway truck (and oiled the wheels) and brushed all the leaves off the track - it goes pretty fast now. Spray painted all the metal to a gold colour; looks pretty good, too.

Rather a busy few weeks, with not enough time in the garden.

Looks like last frost this year was 3rd week in April.

Current garden status is as follows.

Potatoes growing nicely and started earthing up. Sweetcorn, runner beans, french beans, broad beans, peas (normal, mangetout, sugarsnap), cucumber, courgette,butternut squash, pumpkin, beetroot, carrot, parsnip, radish, globe artichoke, lettuce, chard all growing nicely, outside. Hundreds of plants in pots (far too many) to be sold at school fair. Lots of flowering plants put out into borders (from memory - cosmos, ageratum, antirrhinum, marigolds, verbena, nasturtiums) Tomatoes, chili peppers, aubergines, huckleberry all doing OK indoors. Looks like a big crop on the redcurrant and blueberries is on the way. Strawberries, blackcurrant, apples and pears all blossomed ok and were not troubled by frost.

Other vaguely garden related update is that we got a new trampoline over may bank holiday, which meant re-arranging stuff on the lawn. Also now up to 4 guinea pigs - Joe, Nibbles, Woody and the newcomer who is Buzz (related to Woody - brother although maybe not from same litter?).

Cropping at the moment we have radish, lettuce & chard. Also rhubarb and asparagus. Gooseberries imminent, with recent heavy rain. Irises for cut flowers - am tempted to get rid of these. Easy to grow but don't really justify the space.

Fennel & swede and various successional crops still to do. No sign of any leek seedlings - seems to be the only failure so far. Lots of weeding to be done (bindweed has made a come back through the back hedge). Quite a lot of hedge trimming needed before thinking about bigger longer-term jobs like Alex's den, the thin strip, re-paving patio.