The Beautiful Month of May

Its a truly beautiful late May afternoon and I've finally planted out the last of the greenhouse crops (apart from my cucumbers).
The spinach is doing so well and is looking lush and deep green in colour. The cabbages and cauliflowers have now also been transplanted outdoors and we must now finish putting the protective netting over the brasicas to keep away the invasive bugs!...Talking of which, today I found this ugly looking character! I think it must be moth Chrysalis.
I am so proud of may garden peas too. They were always the strong seedlings when I started this project and they have continued to delight me with the way they are growing so vigorously.

The green plants have burst into flower and we even have a small handful of pea pods. Still need the peas inside to fatten up and hopefully not get eaten by any birds!

The highlight of today was our first tasting! Yes we eat our first strawberry. It was fat and warm from the sunshine but delicious with a sweet and tangy flavour. It hardly made a grand meal for a family of four! (we cut 2 strawberry's into quarters and shared them but it was still a lot of fun!)


Most of the tomatoes are insitu in the greenhouse beds. We still have a load more compost to collect from Donarbon on the A10 so we can fill the rest of the beds and get the last few tomatoes and pepper plants in. It was looking so likely that my poor little tomato plants were not going to survive after a neighbour failed to water the tender little seedlings last month so I gratefully accepted some plants raised by our good friends and neighbours over the road. These are growing away nicely and instead of our small crop of one type of tomato, we now have a huge mixed selection of varieties growing: Beef tomato, Gardeners Delight, Cherry Tomatoes and juicy Italian Plum tomatoes. I cannot wait for the first signs of fruit.

Oh! I almost forgot... my basil seeds have also survived and are still growing nicely. Lets not forget the chilli peppers which were also damaged but the warm sun and light and good soil have proven to be the best medicine.

Sunshine and water are always a pleasure and not only for the plants... The kids loved the paddling pool which had its first outing of 2009!

The Greenhouse and Garden

Well we finally have our Greenhouse up and ready to go. We were given this wonderful greenhouse by a kind Histon resident who wanted to give it away on www.freecycle.co.uk.

Putting it up was a long process taking several days. (weeks!) It was quite tricky to get the glass in and we had to replace 6 panes of glass with new ones because they broke. But finally here it is in all its glory.  

Chris has worked really hard to get the garden looking so lovely. When we first decided that it would be nice to try and grow our own veggies, my thoughts were of a tiny little plot hidden behind the back wall of my office. True to form, Chris took to the books and researched the best way of growing vegetables and soon suggested my 'small plot' would actually be much better if it was a much bigger space so we could grow many things! My fears were that we would loose our garden and end up with a big area of dirt with nowhere to sit and enjoy the summer. Aesthetics are always important to me and when Chris showed me a plan that would mean nice neat and tidy raised beds next to the patio area, I was delighted.

Chris built the raised beds using reclaimed roof timbers from our friends and neighbours (Thank you Carl and Jo!).

Tami has spent a long time just sitting inside and dreaming of bumper crops of tomatoes and peppers.  The little wind up radio has kept me company while setting out my seeds and organising the space.