my garden this week - july 11

Summer heat arrived here this week. And to our rain soaked bodies it was a shock. It has clouded over a bit now and the scorching heat is gone but the sunshine and no rain continues.

Yesterday I harvested the lettuce that hadn't been eaten by the slugs - I'll plant some more and try cayenne around the plants and see what that does. With my digging boy, I cannot do any poison and I don't really want to - just seems like I'm being a garden bully.

The beans are shooting up, and flowering now. I got more radishes last night and they went in the salad - so homegrown salad! The tomatoes are growing too. D thought I cheated and bought plants. But no, the plants growing are mine from seed. A bit behind but the sunshine has sent most of them shooting up as well.

The zucchini are growing - only 2 of the 7 I planted have done anything so far.

1 yellow squash and 1 green, with lots of flowers (maybe I'll try a squash blossom recipe) and a couple of growing fruit. My disappointing peas have grown a few pods so I might still get a few garden peas. The chard wilted in the heat, despite the packet saying it was heat tolerant - we'll see if anything happens. Otherwise I'll be picking the chard sooner that I thought. The strawberries have a few green berries on them, hopefully they'll ripen in the sunshine and we'll get to taste a few more of our own.

The roses are doing well

and the sweet peas have started to bloom.

I now am able to cut flowers from my garden for the house. The lavender is full of flowers which the bees love.

And the creeper in T's garden is sprouting lots of lovely yellow flowers.

A lovely, growing garden!