The second wave of sunflowers are now flowering – These ones have much larger petals – and smaller centres. Some of them are about 11 feet tall.
they create a bright colourful welcome each time I arrive at the plot.

I am loving the characterful flower heads that have emerged from our Sunflower plants. Each one has its own twisty-ness and withered-ness.
I had always assumed that sunflower heads were big and yellow – but the yellow bit is actually quite small on the varieties we have on our plot.

My back garden – with lots of help from Suzy – is giving me lots of pleasure to look at these days. i can sit for hours staring at the garden. We have opted for more flowers this year – as the new allotment has allowed us to free up some of the garden. The flowers are really bushing out with lots of flowers on the go. My usual desire to tidy up and keep everything in its place has waned and i am happy to see things hanging out over the borders and the pavements.

Here are a few pictures taken this morning June 29th 2011.

Purple Flowering Geraniums – these have been brilliant – lots of flowers that have lasted weeks already.

Sunflowers growing up in front of my shed – the flowers are just forming now – so these should end up about 8 feet tall – I can’t wait.

Some Cosmos bought from my local summer fair.

One of my 3 lovely Artichoke head s- I’ll leave these to flower rather than eating them.

One of my blueberry bushes has been great – the other one I think I may have killed by putting too much ericaceous feed in the pot.

Lovely curly cucumber that I also bought from the local summer fair.

Hazel tree grown from a nut picked off of a local tree. Very reliable to grow. just a few years to wait before we get some Nuts off of it I expect.

Lettuce and Kale growing in front of my shed.

Nasturtiums – that have been slow to grow – but now finally are flowering.

I have loved the Orange Poppies – they have about a dozen new flowers each day – but the flowers do only last a day. but the seed heads are very pretty too.

This slightly forgotten Parsley has gone to flower – so i’ll let it go to seed.

Some pink poppies that are just now starting to flower – lots of buds are coming up. I’ll collect these seeds and take some down to the allotment.

Flowering wild rocket – I’ll try to get some seeds from these too.

Just emerging Welsh salad onions – to be eaten like chives or left to get a bit bigger and eaten like small spring onions. loking forward to these – i have planted some of these in the allotment too.

Made a short visit to the allotment at the weekend. Planted my courgettes and a row of sunflowers at the front of the plot (alongside the track).
Gave them a good watering in but it has been soo hot here for weeks. My girlfriend went over for a short visit yesterday to water everything and put some small stick in next to the sunflowers to give them some support (and stop them getting trodden on).

And today (Tuesday) I got a lift over to the plot from work with lots of timber frames that were being thrown away. These are going to make perfect raised beds (not raised by a great height but great for defining the individual beds).
So – Now I just have to wait till the weekend so that I can get out there and work out where the beds are going and what is going to go into them.

Really looking forward to the weekend now. I may even get a bit more done on the shed.

Sunflowers

• 9 tubes
• Emerged after 6 days
• 11.04.11 – doing very well
• now graduated from the kitchen windowsill into the shed (by the window).
• I hope it’s not too cold for them in there.

Tomatoes

• 9 tubes
• these are still on the kitchen windowsill
• most germinated after 12 days – not exactly booming yet though
• Must keep an eye out for a greenhouse

Bathroom windowsill – Sown into toilet roll tubes

Courgette (Middle Left)

• heavy cropping Green variety
• emerged after 8 days
• 11.04.11 – doing very well – Big Leaves
• 15.04.11 – Planted outdoors into raised bed – need mulching and maybe netting to protect them from slugs/rabbits/crows.

Basil (Bottom Left)

• Really successful last year – for lunchtime salads
• Emerged after 1 week
• 11.04.11 – very tiny still.
• 19.04.11 – still quite small

Blue Daisies (Top Left)

• seeds from successful pot plant we bought last year
• 11.04.11 – no sign yet
• 19.04.11 – still no sign

Yellow Diaises (Top Right)

• seeds collected from another garden
• 11.04.11 – no sign yet
• 19.04.11 – still no sign

Nasturtium (Bottom right)

• Standard variety – Orange and Yellow flowers
• Red ones were not very successful last year
• emerged after 1 week
• 19.04.11 – doing quite well – may plant out over the weekend

Peppers (Top Middle) – Yolo

• 11.04.11 – no sign yet
• 19.04.11 – emerged earlier this week.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli (Middle Middle)

• never had space to do these before
• sprouted after 3 days
• 11.04.11 – still quite small
• 19.04.11 – growing well

Honesty (Bottom Middle)

• 11.04.11 – no sign yet
• 19.04.11 – still no sign

Ipoemea (Lower Right)

• seeds collected from very successful climber grown from seed last year
• sprouted after 2 days
• doing v well (hopefully these will still be the red flowering variety – and not revert back to the White flowers)
• 19.04.11 – doing quite well – may plant out over the weekend – not sure where yet though.

Also sown:

Hollyhocks – top 2 rows (covered in dropped Geranium petals)

• Germinated after 10 days
• Slow growing
• 19.04.11 – doing OK

Sunflowers – bottom 2 rows

• Germinated after 6 days
• doing very well indoors
• 16.04.11 – planted out with small support sticks