Salad box

A foxy selfie

Peabeans

Shredded survivor

The beautiful variegated green leaves of this hosta were shredded by snails a few weeks ago, but not before the plant had garnered enough energy to produce flower spikes.

Verbascum densifloram

Origanum vulgare

Wild Marjoram supposedly prefers limestone and chalky soils, yet it seems perfectly happy on a heavy clay soil and has self-sown in abundance this year.

Pink bliss

Plumtreeooze

      Resin on the plum tree, rich in terpenes, sealing an old injury.

Leek chafer

                           Rose chafer beetle on a leek flower.

Daily pickings

Passiflora edulis

A transplanted passion flower vine, happy in a pot and looking to climb on anything to hand.

Late pea

Some of the pea crop has over matured and dried out, but they're easier to store like that and can be rehydrated in stews, or used as seed for later sowings.

Countdown tomato

     Not long now until the first hit. The leaves alone smell great.

Onions nearly done

Onions are swelling nicely, with regular watering in the final stages before the tops start dying back.

Vanilla whiff

The star jasmine's in bloom and giving off a delicate vanilla perfume every evening. It's in a pot, so outrageously thirsty, but as it's by the back door it can constantly ask for a drink.

Seedy intentions

Celery, if allowed to flower, provides a great source of interest for smaller flying insects. Later, when it sets seed, these can be harvested for the kitchen or left to self seed in the surrounding soil.

Helichrysum italicum

This Helichrysum, or curry plant, is a cutting from the original bush which was looking poorly a few years ago. Both are now doing fine thanks to the last two hot summers.

Happy but thirsty

The french beans are happy but thirsty and in need a bit of a comfrey feed as they're in flower and about to set a crop.

Lettuce relief

Earlier sowings of lettuce didn't survive a mollusc invasion during the early June downpours, but a later lot have made it through to provide more than enough for the present.

Bean season

The broad beans are cropping well, heralding the season of the bean.

Salade du jour

Tall bloomers

Thirsty corn

     The sweetcorn's romping away now and grateful of a daily drink.

First squash

                          Harvesting the first courgettes.

Red jelly berry

Although the blackcurrant season is fairly short, redcurrants hang around for ages. It's a constant reminder to make time to pick enough for a jar of jelly, or at least squirrel some away in the freezer.

Lily reliable

       The first week of July and right on time the lily buds open.

Home front

Cherryred

Berryred

Berryfull