Black gold

                Entering the rudbeckia and sunflower season.

Easy pickings

Sunshine & showers

                  Sunshine and showers bring out the gladioli.

Dianthus caryophyllus

Carnations blooming in their second year, still smelling deliciously of cloves and honey.

Very veg

Pumps away

         Pumpkin, propped up on a brick for protection and warmth.

Lily-like Funk

Surprised by the emergence of this hosta flower, looking lily-like and emitting a similar perfume. Turns out that they're also known as plantain lilies and Funkia, in honour of botanist Heinrich Funk.

Cluster lilies

The cluster lilies, aka Brodiaea have appreciated the warm dry weather this year (what/who hasn't?) but are nearly over.

Leek honey

                          Honey bees love these flowering leeks

Polygonia c-album

             A fancy name for the common Comma butterfly.

Stenurella melanura

Today's insect on the alium is a Stenurella melanura longhorn beetle.

Cetonia aurata

      A rose chafer beetle feasting on pollen on a flowering leek.

Coenagrionidae

                                Damselflies still busy at it.

5 a day

                       Soft fruit overlap. Jam experiments.

Broad fit for first test

Entering the broad bean season on the day of the first Test at Lord's.

It's been a good year for ...

Helichrysum italicum aka the curry plant, enjoying its best year yet.

Plat du jour

Just as the main pea harvest is over, the cobra/french/climbing beans are coming into season. Unlike peas and broad beans, they don't freeze very well, so lots will be eaten fresh this week.

Squashed

     Difficult to tell pumpkins, courgettes and butternut squash apart.

2-3 spot

Not sure if this is a two-spot ladybird, or a three-spot, but it's not as common as the usual crowd and likes the yarrow 'cloth of gold'.

Mix and mash

Plenty of food around now. It all needs picking and storing, processing and eating. The first of the summer raspberries are ripe as the strawberry crop dwindles. Making jam with both, separately, together, with blackcurrants. Mix and mash.

Miniature bonfires

Appreciated all the more because it wasn't expected to flower this year, but after a good soaking, the honeysuckle flowers unfurl in the dappled sunlight like miniature bonfires.

Perpetual brew

Liquid comfrey feed smelling foul but working wonders on all flowering crops.

Frog in the bed

       Always heartening to see a young frog in the strawberry bed

Smugly

                       Smugly self-sufficient-ish, for a bit.

Dry and fry

Good bunch of shallots with no sign of white rot, grown from sets from the supermarket.

Olive and Tomato

Intricate olive flowers liking the heat and bursting with pollen. (Tomato plant in the background)

Peak pea

Small poppies

           Heatwave on the summer solstice, poppies tall and small.

Sweetcorn shady

The sweetcorn's romping away but it might have been a mistake to allow a self-seeded courgette plant to impose itself.

Tiny jewels

Tiny jewels fit for a summer pudding or storing at the back of the freezer to make redcurrant jelly or to colour and flavour alcoholic beverages.

Propellerhead jasmine

Bought this star jasmine a couple of years ago as a twiggy stem and planted it in a large pot. This is the first year that it's flowered - thanks to copious watering and feeding - and the flowers turn out to be like little propellers, or fans.

Geeseberries

           Many about. Giving them away and filling the freezer.

Strawless berries

A handy few bales of straw might have prevented some of the berries from getting mud spattered during the downpours and the grey mould botrytis might not have taken quite a large proportion of the crop. Still, more than enough to harvest and process, what with all the other soft fruit demanding attention.

Backup beans

The backup broad beans have made it through the aphid infestation.

Current currant current

Episyrphus balteatus?

 

 A Marmalade Hoverfly - Episyrphus balteatus or is it?

Pea pod

The plants need almost daily watering, but the pea pods are fattening nicely and the first are worth harvesting.

Pea pong

        The first sweet pea flowers catch the nose before the eye

Purple sage

                           The bees be loving this

Drip trip

The indoor hoya vine's produced a couple of dozen flowers this year, all dripping nectar and producing a heady scent every evening.

Agog again

First of the crop. The ones on the south facing side of the bushes ripen first. Loads more to come ...

Spin shady

Some of this year's spinach, transplanted from seedlings to a shady part of the plot (thanks, neighbours with the 20 foot willow ; )

Anty dahlia

This dahlia's in flower early, possibly stressed because it's in a pot.