Beans present & future

Harvested the first of the French beans and planted out some new seedlings for a late harvest.

Cuppa cha

A good year for chamomile and enough to harvest for tea, before the rains return next month.

Rack 'em up

Ideally, the onion harvest should last into the winter, but this year's crop isn't large enough and unless they're stored well they can rot. Enough for the next few weeks though and a lot more flavour than those in the shops.

Some Like It Hot

Raised from seed 18 months ago, these carnations are now blooming well and smell deliciously of honey and cloves. (Dianthus caryophyllus 'Giant Chabaud')

Home Spice

                                        Hot Cayenne

Frozen assets

That's the broad bean harvest over for the year, with about 5kg in the freezer for later. A good source of protein; one of the best crops to grow. A shame that the earlier blackfly infestation reduced the harvest by around 20%.

Hydra

A multi-headed sunflower in the garden that made it to maturity, out of the dozens that didn't.

Tray Safe

Kale and lettuce seedlings, safely sprouting in trays away from slimy beasties, though in hot weather the compost can dry out alarmingly quickly.

Autumn Early

If these are the new 'Autumn Gold' raspberries, planted back in March, then autumn has come early.

Lettuce Pray

Few lettuce sown directly to the soil have got this large this year because of all the mollusc activity, but hopefully some of these will make it through.

40% net

A good harvest of broad beans, despite the aphid angst last month. The plants possibly suffered more from rust, which happens when they're not well ventilated - grown too close together - and it's a bit damp. A kilo of pods yields about 400 grams of beans.

Dearth

There's a peculiar lack of strawberries this year. The plants were healthy in Spring, flowered and were well watered and fed with potash. There seemed to be a good amount of berries forming. It's possible that birds have taken them, though they haven't before, even small, or large two-legged mammals. Odd. Perhaps there was a greater proportion of older plants to newly generated ones, maybe rain and wind at a crucial time prevented pollination, like on the Cox's apple tree this year ... but gardener's aren't supposed to mention the disasters, just focus on the positives.

Glut

Loads of courgettes around this year; they're very thirsty, hungry plants and benefit from a daily water and as much compost as possible.

Slim Shady

Celery's quite happy growing in the shade, but although the leaves and thinned plants are good for salads and stews, the stems won't be ready to harvest until November.

Lily Bloom

A welcome end to the June rainy season and some sunshine to bring out the first lilies, which, if the forecast is correct, won't get spoiled by a prolonged downpour any time soon.

Unclassified

Can't identify this perennial weed, which grows a couple of metres tall. It appears to be a cross between a dandelion and a thistle. Even a trawl through this great site didn't help :
http://wildflowerfinder.org.uk/

Not so easy peasy

Harvested a kilo of early peas, though by the time they're shelled, that'll be about half a kilo. They're worth it, even though they're labour intensive and predated by mice, birds and molluscs. 

Jammy dodgers

They take an age to pick - not possible to harvest in a hurry, or you'll drop them, or worse, spill the container. Plucked a kilo today, probably for jam, with some juice left over for something healthy and / or alcoholic.