Silence, ça pousse!

Well, the summer has been lovely and hot, as you can see from the colour of the grass. Or what used to be grass! But the main thing is that the plants in the potager have been growing vigorously. We have enjoyed eating the strawberries, salad, mangetout, radishes, beetroots, green beans, courgettes and herbs all summer long and now we are waiting for the tomatoes to ripen. There's going to be quite a lot, although maybe not quite the 50 kilos we got last year. But that was in the south man, can't beat that warmth and sunshine.

On the second 'terrace' I found few other permaculture beds, all ready to go, once I had removed all the weeds and grass growing there. I planted some pumpkin and butternut seeds and few potatoes too. Among the long grass I found some more strawberry plants and potatoes! Let's see if we get anything from those plants.

The courgette seedlings took to their new home like a duck in the water and have been positively flourishing. I've never seen anything like it! We need to look into this permaculture thing and make sure the whole potager is prepared in that fashion for the next summer.
So far we've got 25 kilos of courgettes and they're still going strong. What are we going to do with all of them?

And this is what the other end wad looking like in the beginning of the season. On the left some dwarf beans, then beetroots, salad, strawberries and mangetout.

Among the first things from the garden we ate, are the radishes, mangetout and strawberries. This is the first time that I've managed to grow radishes, so it's quite something. And they were delicious!

The garden needs some colour too, so I planted some more wildflower seeds into this flowerbed.

And here they are,working out much better than in the other, much bigger flowerbed which has a lot of greenery but not much colour.

Yes, I'm talking about you! It's flowers we want. Mind you, the ladybugs seem to love it here, so it can't be that bad. I forgive you. Carry on.

The 27 tomato plants in the greenhouse just weren't enough, so I planted nine more by the stonewall (this photo), three in the potager and six up on the second terrace.  Well, I had planted a lot of seeds from last years' tomatoes and didn't want all the plants to go to waste, and also it will also be an experiment; whether they survive outside on their own, without the protection of the greenhouse, or not. There's also couple of tomatoes that have seeded in the garden on their own, so I guess it'll be fine.

Here they are, little soldiers, doing just fine!

I had also some extra courgette plants and I stuck them next to the stonewall. Maybe not the best soil in there but it's warm and cosy anyway.

My lovely neighbour, Sylvette, gave me some chitted potatoes, which is great because I hadn't gotten around buying any and it was probably too late to do it. So, in they went and we'll be eating at least some of our own potatoes this autumn.

This gives me a nasty flashback into my early childhood, when I had to weed a potato field the size of a half a football field. And with no pay either! Early in the morning when the ground and the plants were still wet with dew. Talking about child labour.
Brrhh, none of that here now. I can weed (or not) in the +32°c heat of the afternoon with a glass of rose in the other hand, if I want to! You've got to profit of being an adult, n'est-ce pas?

This little corner had a loooads of greenery for the longest time too, but then I cut some rhubarb sticks to make a rhubarb crumble and things started happening.

Much better now when the flowers have more light and can really get into the business of growing.

Somebody said in the beginning of the summer, 'Nah, the sunflowers won't grow in here, it's too cold.'
Eh, voila! Proved them wrong!

That's more like it, colour!

Mon Cheri's favourite, tagetes, african marigolds.

And sometimes the weeds that grow in the middle of the lawn, seem to be the prettiest things of all.