Veg & Blooms

Insect watering trough.

Hello, lovers of #SixonSaturday!

Yet another week of sun & no rain.  The veg are happy about this, but no one else is. 

A promising crop of berries dried on the vine, though they looked healthy otherwise.  Presumably from the hot, dry air.

With few exceptions (calendula), my flowers have been lack lustre.  The sunflowers & cosmos are very short.  The summer bulbs either didn't grow, stopped growing, or died.


My Twitter feed makes me wish I'd grown dahlias this year, but no, I wanted something different.  Now, I have only my ice cream for solace.

However, with a little effort, I present a few lovelies surviving amongst the veg this week. 

1.  After the tassels comes the silk.

The predicted hand pollination has begun.  As of this morning, there are 3 corn silks.

First silk.

2.  No longer fruitless.

Last week, I wondered when the peppers would ever appear.  I now have etiuda & cayenne.  The latter are so small as yet, my phone camera couldn't get a good shot.  Maybe next week.

A pair of etiuda chilis.

3.  Fire tongues.

The beans love this weather, so keep me busy harvesting.  As with the peas, I find the coloured pods so much easier to find. 

Fire tongue dwarf French beans.

And now for those blossoms.


4.  Spirea

This gal looked a bit rugged after the Beast from the East.  She earned herself a serious haircut this past spring.  Today, she's looking grand.

Spirea going to town.

5.  Unintentionally purple.

In this shady corner, we have a young wisteria, a smoke bush, a very short spider fatsia & a young cedar in a pot.  The poppy & loosestrife/toadflax/wandythang volunteers are serendipitously colour coordinated.

Accidental purple.

6.  Day lily.

This clump isn't actually in my garden, but has escaped from the OAP Fairy Person's garden & lives in the bin alley.  I may have to take custody of it in the autumn when it dies back.

Daylily absconding. 

Do you know my name?

That's my Six for the week.  There's rumours of rain on Tuesday.  In the meantime, does anyone know this plant?

For more garden glimpses, drop by The Propagator who leads this band of merry fools.  You'll find his Six, plus links to all SoS gardens across the globe.

See you here next week, hopefully a little damper.  If not, the unfettered ice cream eating continues.