Summer Delights

/ Sue Dreamwalker

Well my gardening friends, where oh where is June flying too. Already we are past the Summer Solstice and nearly upon Mid-Summers Day here in the UK.  So I thought it about time I popped my head up out of my garden and showed you how all things are growing. 

I have lots of photo’s to share, and also lots to tell you about our RHS Chatsworth Flower Show visit too on the 9th of June.. I took so many photo’s there, I was in my seventh Heaven, as I ooh and arrghed over the wonderful blooms and creative gardens on display.. But those I will share next time..  This inspired us to do a make over on our own back garden, which is why I have not had a lot of time for blog land visits .. 

Many thanks for your patience and I hope all you budding gardeners are busy now reaping your hard labours as you see the fruits of your labours maturing before your eyes. 

Welcome also to any new followers..   I have so many new followers now on both my WP sites, I enjoy interactions, so please introduce yourselves, don’t be shy. This is how we share our gardening tips etc. 

So I will show you how things are looking mid June on our Plot and the pictures will tell their own stories. So sit back, feet up, and give your own aching backs a bit of rest.  As I share what is happening on the plot right now. 

A view from the top of our allotments down to the sheds. I allowed the poppies to grow along the boarder and have in the middle one lovely pink pompom poppy.. I will be taking seeds from this little Gem that Mother Nature has gifted my garden.

Pea Row and the beetroots in front with potatoes. We have had several broccoli and several purple cauliflowers and some Orange ones, I forgot to take pictures but they were delicious 🙂

We have several Courgettes now starting to produce.. Some of you call these by another name Zucchini

Courgettes..

These Peas were from bought seeds and I have had my first crop off of them this week

Pumpkins at the back of the sheds, These are for Halloween 🙂

The sweetcorn is to the top left and is about 2ft high now, and in the middle is the Butternut Squash and new peas from saved dried peas from last years crop all which came through. To the right upper corner these are the potato crop.. We have had several meals from the new potatoes and they have been gorgeous .

These are the tomatoes in the allotment greenhouse.. It was a hundred degreesF in there the other day the thermometer was about to pop.. My hubby took a pain of the glass out of the door to replace with wire mesh to allow for more air in there.

Towards the back of the sheds where the pumpkins are are our Blackberries These are a giant variety and the bees are all over the flowers right now. 
Speaking of Bees, We have a nest of them between our sheds, we are very happy they have chosen to nest there. And are no problem. So long as you know their flight path lol

I have also had loads and I mean loads of Redcurrants this year, so I have been busy freezing these.. They are really sweet this year, but you must make sure you pick the ripe ones if you can, as the unripened ones can be sour. ..  So what I do is pick from the bush the ones with most ripe fruit on first.. Then sort through them.

They can be fiddly.. So after picking from the bush on long stalks, I painstakingly pick off each one of the ripe ones and make sure the little stalk is taken off.  Which is difficult seeing as they all ripen at different stages on the same stalk..

I then leave the unripe ones in the widow sill and before long they too turn and ripen..Then repeat the process with them. 

Redcurrants prepared for freezing

I hope you are all having a wonderful Summer.. As record temperatures for 40 years here in the UK soar up and up.. While the humid hot nights are not good for sleeping, if you manage to keep your gardens well watered in the cool of the evenings or early mornings, ( we have been in the allotments as early as 5-30am to beat the Suns heat. )  This is certainly Growing Weather, and a welcome change for Britain’s usual showery cooler summers..

So until next time when I will be sharing some of Chatsworth Show with you. 

Happy Gardening

~Sue~

58 thoughts on “Summer Delights”

  1. Wow you have if patience is a virtue you have tremendous patient with the red currants and tending the garden as well under really hot conditions. The red poppies are the same poppies we planted in empty lot in remembrance of my partner. Hopefully they have grown this year. Will have to make a trip in my old stomping grounds to see if they have. Halloween pumpkins one of my favorite as well. I don’t know why I am attracted to pumpkins so much be there it is. I love the orange color as well. Happy Gardening Sue and I take it your next piece of wisdom not of gardening but for your other blog will manifest itself while gardening. Stay well.

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    • Yes, big smiles Joseph, Patience is a virtue, lol as they say.. And I have another bowl awaiting which was picked today, but they are waiting till tomorrow. 🙂 I am all berried out lol. 🙂 In-between that I have been cleaning and freezing loganberries and raspberries..
      I have a recipe some where on my blog here I think of pumpkin cup cakes.. I made them, and felt they needed more added spice .. But my granddaughter and I love to sculpture them.. This year she says she wants one that is going to be sick lol.. ( hope you are not eating while reading ) haha.. But she saw one on line with all the slime scraped out coming from a mouth.. She is 6… 😀 And big smiles Joseph for the added wisdom. I am sure lots of inspiration will manifest while in nature..
      And dont worry if your poppies do not appear.. My daughter scattered some special poppy seeds in her garden several years ago, and only this year have they appeared.. 🙂
      I have thrown some on my home garden, so hope some grow next year.. I love them.. 🙂

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      • Yes I have seen the Jack’o’lantern being sick. It is quite humorous. I am sure your granddaughter will be over the moon when it is done. It is nice that you allow her to do this as it will probably one of her best memories. Don’t blame you taking a break from the berries it is a tedious job and kudos to you for doing it. Nice to know about the poppies we shall see and wait. Happy writing in your head and will await what you come up with. Stay well.

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  2. I enjoyed your post! When my family and I lived in the UK years ago, I was so impressed by the beautiful gardens that everyone had. Even those with very small places to have them. I patterned my gardens after those we saw in England. I miss it!

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    • Many thanks for your lovely visit, and our allotments here are a rented piece of land from the local council that many grow their veggies on plots such as these.. Wonderful to know you once lived in the UK too.. I am sure you do not miss our weather.. Though to be fair this Summer it seems we are enjoying more Sun and heat than is usual.. So I am not complaining.. 🙂 Wishing you and your family well..
      Blessings Sue 🙂

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  3. It seems like you are having the summer that we didn’t. I don’t mind, you can keep it! Lovely poppies and the scope of your allotment is quite huge isn’t it? I wish we had the ability to just pop plants/seeds into the ground and grow them. Life would be SO much easier around here! I took a few cuttings that had rooted from a street prostrate rosemary yesterday and had a terrible time finding somewhere that I could plant them that wasn’t full of rocks. I truly envy you your glorious rock free flat soil Sue. I have some redcurrants as well and am most grateful for this mini tutorial in how to pick and ripen them. I wouldn’t have known that otherwise. I picked the last of the green chillies on the bushes as it’s pretty cold here and I didn’t think that they would ripen up and I spread them out on a large mesh cake rack to dry in front of Brunhilda and I was stopped in my tracks the other day when I went to put some wood on the fire that most of them have turned red! Curious eh? Thank you for sharing a truly lovely summer post with us and I am glad you are having such an excellent growing season 🙂

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    • Yes Fran I realise how very lucky we are no critters to eat them, only pigeons and the odd fox digging up our potatoes, but thankfully no rabbits eating our veggies.. So happy the redcurrants mention was a help.. They are fiddly things, and I learnt the first year to cover them up from birds.. Funny that, as I had some ripe ones very small I put on the bird table and they wouldn’t touch them I had to remove them.. Seems birds must recognise berries only when on the bush.. Sensible birds, 🙂

      Well there you go, ripening your chillies with the aid of Brunhilda.. 🙂 lol Very good.. Hubby picked some under-ripe loganberries and if you have tasted them, you will know how sour an under-ripe one can be.. So put them on the kitchen window sill, and each one turned over night.. Such has been our warm nights.. But its cooler much cooler today.. 🙂
      Thank you for reading Fran.. and hope you are still enjoying your studies etc.. I popped on over but see Mr Fraggle is still tops.. 😀 lol.. Hope your winter months are not too cold..
      Chatsworth inspired us to do our own garden make-over on the back garden.. So hoping to share that with you.. Though I did forget to take a photo on one of the the before but I may have one some where..
      Take care both of you and lots of loves xx Sue

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      • I see that they had to close Chatworth early (I think it was Chatworth) because of storms or something like that? I am really enjoying my indoors time and am crocheting at the moment. I have to get a wriggle on as I have a doll to make for a friends granddaughters birthday coming up soon and I keep getting side tracked with other projects. I have a wonderful persimmon to plant out that Steve bought me a month ago. I need to carefully work out where to plant it as I really want it to grow as I adore persimmons. I have a lot to plan for the garden this year including using a big pile of chook manure and straw at the back of Sanctuary as I know that nutrients flow through the soil profile and as it is on a steep slope, I am hoping that nature will distribute the nutrients through the soil for me as well as mulching the soil at the rear of the garden and maybe putting in a green crop to give it some stability and attract the worms and soil biota to this compacted area. I am also going to go hunting for pop bottles as I want to have a go at making a pop bottle glasshouse. I got the plans from the internet where a Scottish school shared them in a PDF format and I would love to make at least one. I saw a house over at Beauty Point the other day that has a lot of lovely rustic structures made of wood and other mediums for glasshouses and shelters as we have a LOT of possums in our area and I thought that I would love Serendipity Farm to be very similar. I am going to make a short video for the blog and I plan on writing up a blog post soon. Thank you for still checking Sue. Keep up with the gardening and I would love to see your garden redo 🙂

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        • Oh wow. a pop bottle glass house.. Now that is what I call a plan Fran.. Chatsworth closed early on its Press Day for specially invited guests. which was a day before it officially opened to the public due to high winds and torrential rain.. So the hobnobs did not get a full day, or good weather.. We went on the Friday and my daughter went on the Sunday and both days were good with bad ones inbetween..
          I wish you luck with your crocheting.. When I had a quiet moment the other day I actually started a new pattern of knitting a Summer cardigan.. In cotton yarn.. Though it will be winter by the time its finished lol.. Always so much to do, so I sympathise with you Fran.
          I will be posting the garden make over soon… 🙂 I am very pleased with hubbies hard work.. xx 🙂 though I had to out and tell him off for using hedge trimmers on our magnolia without telling me he was climbing the step ladders.. As I am chief ladder holder… He had his special 70 this week, though he still thinks he is 40 lol.. 😉 And I will look forward to you future posting.. Lots of LOVE.. Sue xxx ❤ ❤

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          • Congratulations to your husband on achieving his special 70 Sue and it gives me great joy on hearing that he is bucking the system and still thinks that he is 40 🙂 I can’t wait to see what he (and you) have done in your garden. Isn’t it funny that we hear about the garden being closed when it’s the hobnobs day to attend? I doubt we would have heard about it all the way over on the other side of the world if it was either of the other days 😉 I am going to spinning classes tomorrow for the first time. I want to learn how to spin so that I can make my own cardies and I also want to learn how to knit. I know how to knit and purl but that’s about it so I might have to ask you a few questions when I am fandangling a needle or two 😉

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            • Ohhhh lovely, spinning is something that has always appealed to me.. Ever since I was at junior school.. Being in a country Primary School it was full of farmers children.. So wool was easy to come by. I remember our teacher was really into crafting, and he bought the class some hand held carding combs.. We would comb the wool in straight lines and he brought a spinning wheel in.. But for us children we had lots of little bobbin weights, which we tied the wool too and let hang and spin.. It was rather chunky and rough and we did experiments on wool too, as he showed us that you can get soap out of sheeps wool because of the oil content.. We didnt do that, but I remember it so so well.. So spinning has always been a secret wish lol 🙂
              Thank you, yes Hubby is doing well, And you are right about the hobnobs lol.. But I had to smile as our day was more or less perfect at the show.. 🙂

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            • Fingers crossed I can spin something that I can work with sometime soon. I read something the other day that is SO true… “You have to be willing to be bad at something before you can get good”.

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            • PS… ask away on the knitting.. I had to do a test piece on the cardi I am knitting as I undid the six rows on 86 stitches as I miss understood the pattern, and where and ended up with half as many stitches again lol.. So undid the whole lot.. did a practice square and then kicked myself for not seeing what was written, as I had kept repeating the same mistake across the row. lol… So I am still learning after all these years..
              I need to READ it and not just skip read what i am thinking is there.. A lesson in patience again.. :-).. Each of the six row pattern is now dead easy, but you need to concentrate.. And so I put earphones on, listen to music, then hubby knows NOT to disturb.. Hehe.. 🙂 lol as I count alot along the row.. 🙂 He now knows those Black looks.. haha.. ❤

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            • Steve is MOST happy when I start a crochet project as I am then officially away with the pixies and he can watch or play whatever he likes on the telly as I don’t care. I love the clean look of knitting. I love simple things and knitting really appeals to me and knitting homespun yarn has a deep seated honestly with me. “Frogit” eh? Nothing like realising you have made a mistake or slipped a stitch down lower in your progress to make you twitch! I don’t really want to make complicated things, I love the look of straight garter and stocking stitch but I want to make hats and gloves and jumpers etc. and I am sure I wouldn’t be too bad at knitting I just haven’t ever given it the old college try as no-one really taught me to knit as I was surrounded by crocheters as a kid and my aunty knitted but used a knitting machine as she sold things.

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            • My gran told me that I crocheted “cack handed” but she must have done some research at the library (the internet of the 70’s) and the next time I saw her she said “I think you are crocheting the German way…” so I got that concession! 😉

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            • Haha.. I crochet like I knit, I wrap the wool around with the hand holding the crochet hook.. I can not hold it in my other hand and hook the wool around with my hook.. I tried and tried to do it as it says in the book and always revert back to how I use the needle and wool when knitting 🙂

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            • I had a lovely time a spinning class and they told me “It doesn’t matter which hand you spin with, just pick the one that feels “right”” You know, I think we spend too much time trying to do things “properly” and not enough time just “doing” things naturally. I am going to just “do” things as much as I can now and focus on learning how to do them rather than on perfection. If you crochet like that, and it feels right and you can do it then go for it! 🙂

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  4. Beautiful abundance! Our black currants are ripening here, and I still have bags of them frozen from last year. Time for a housewarming chutney once we move. Such great variety and a large allotment you have there. I’m discerning what the new resident groundhog and potential deer situations are telling me at the new house in terms of gardening. I had intended “a right sized garden” at this new place, and I suspect it will be quite different and less intensive than my current setup. We shall see. Thanks for sharing your bounty with us in virtual land. Love, Laura

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    • I can understand having fruit from last year.. We too still have loads of blackberries in the freezer, and love the idea of chutney.. I know of a great apple and blackberry chutney recipe :-).. So pleased we do not have groundhogs or deer to chomp on our veggies Laura, so yes, I can see you having to think how you are going to protect crops.. So pleased you enjoyed Laura, and good luck in your new garden.. ❤ xxx ❤ Hugs xx love Sue

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  6. Happy Mid-Summer, Sue! Summer sounds hot especially those humid nights but it sounds like you and the plants are coping well 🙂 Zucchini! I never knew they were called courgettes – I think I prefer the name zucchini. Has a nicer ring to it 😀 Those are so many redcurrants. So red, ripe and I’m guessing juicy as well. Hopefully they all fit in the freezer. They can be great for making pie. We just had our Winter Solstice here in Australia. It has been cold and next week seems even colder but here’s to longer days and summer for us soon 🙂

    Enjoy the sunshine ❤ ❤ ❤

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    • Dearest Mabel, so happy you dropped in, and I am late in my replies as per normal.. Happy you learnt a new name for your Zucchini 🙂 and we both enjoy them, despite their differing names.. Yes they fit in the freezer we have four… lol.. yes, two in the garage and two in our home. So we freeze a lot of our veggies to last through winter.
      We had our Summer Solstice of course and it was hot HOT.. I am always envious when its your Summer while we are going through our Winter, so I hope your winter is not so harsh or cold..
      Sending LOVE and greetings your way.. Love Sue ❤ 🙂

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  8. Wow Sue – what a great looking garden. Only another garden can know all the physical work you put into your allotment gardening spot. Loved all of your photos. Those currants look fantastic – I have not grown any of those for years. Thanks for sharing this great post. xxxxx

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    • Thank you Peggy… Yes we gardeners know what goes into our plots, and our backs know too LOL.. So happy to share with you and yes Redcurrants a lot of work picking and cleaning etc, But worth it as they are tasty if you get the ripe ones.. Sending lots of love right back my friend.. ❤

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    • Hi Lisa, thank you and yes, our garden in the allotments is the best it has looked in years.. I feel our spirits have that combined affect upon it.. What you put in, you get back.. And it has been a great source of comfort to be closer to nature, nurturing and growing things, takes our minds out of the world’s troubles for a time..
      So thank you.. Love and Hugs sent back my friend xx

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    • Wow time is speeding up and August is not that far away.. 🙂 make sure you eat ripe ones first or your experience may be a little sour lol.. But they are Very good for you, and have a distinctive taste.. 🙂 Lovely to have you in the allotments again Robbie.. Sending Huge hugs your way.. Love Sue xxx ❤

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    • Bless you Christy.. Always good to get fingernails in the Earth.. But I make sure I scrub them well LOL.. and apply a little hand cream.. We girls have to stick to our beauty regimes 🙂 and I thank you dear Christy for your lovely visits.. I so love them.. Big hugs xx

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  13. Your redcurrants are wonderful nature’s jewels! Are you going to make jelly?
    Your allotment is coming on very well indeed with the hot weather, gosh 100 degrees in your greenhouse! I had to keep dampening down and misting everything in tge greenhouse last week. Your corn is huge! I hope we can grow our produce and flowers from this year’s seeds, it will be very exciting! Do you have any seeds which don’t work? 🙂 🙂 xxx

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    • Sometimes even bought seeds we have had like last year we had to plant sweetcorn twice. 🙂 I made jelly last year, and as I am cutting down on sugar, I am going to use in pies and set in jelly with ice-cream etc But Redcurrant Jelly is good.. 🙂

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  16. This year, friend Sue, it does not too good for my garden as deer and moose are just raiding it … I put up a fence and a scare crow and a wind chime … but seems to attract them rather than distract them… with June almost gone and only July and (maybe) August left, my plants do not have much chance. Meouw … Love, cat. PS: But I will get a few of them raiders of my garden come hunting season in November …

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    • I am sure Nature will provide if not veggies then meat for your larder Cat.. Sorry to hear your garden is being so raided.. You should not plant such tasty morsels to eat lol 🙂 Lovely to see you dear Cat. Lots of Love your way my friend xx ❤

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