Gardening and Leisure Time.

I know, I know, its been more than another eight weeks since I last did an update here on my Gardening blog. And I am sure there are those of you who have unsubscribed and I wouldn’t blame you.

But Life away from the internet is what I am embracing more and more of this year, to be honest long spells on the computer drain me more than working on the plot. 

So what have we been up to. Well at the beginning of July we took a holiday and had a wonderful time exploring the Pembrokeshire Coastline  in Wales, and surrounding area, All of that to follow.

But upon our return we had to get stuck back into our home garden and of course while you are away the weeds on the plot don’t suddenly stop growing. So we trimmed back some of our home garden shrubs and trimmed our conifers and made some mulch out of it with the use of a shredder, to spread between the raspberry bushes to save on weeding.

While away we had a kind neighbour who watered our outdoor pots, and the tomatoes in the green house were well watered because of our thoughtful daughter who had bought her Dad for his birthday in June, a Solar Watering system which my hubby rigged up before we went away in the allotment greenhouse and it worked a treat..

A good thing too as the weather here the whole of July has been wonderful, Sunny days and showers, perfect growing weather, weeds and all. With the last few weeks of record high temperatures which reached 38C.. A new all time record here in the U.K.

We are back now to more seasonal temperatures and have had three days of rain, so the English weather is more or less back to normal.

After we got the garden settled. We decided to re-decorate our living room, and dinning room. This done, we then set to and redecorated the Hall, Stairs and Landing.  We finished just two days before the Heat record struck and believe me, all we did that day was rest and drink plenty of liquids. We are just not geared up for such hot weather here in England, not even the fans we put on gave much relief. Our homes don’t have air-conditioning.

So first the plot in photos, since taking these, we have picked all the peas and in total have frozen, nine pounds in weight of peas

 You should be able to click to enlarge these photo’s

Peas, lettuce, beetroot, parsnip

Shelled peas sorted, bagged and ready to freeze

 

 

 

 

 

Another view, the poppies really attracted lots of bees which was our intention

Hubby on the plot, you see how lovely the poppies were we set on purpose down the side of the allotment. The Bees loved them.

Strawberries, Onions, Potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apples

Dahlias and sweetpeas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the sheds and compost bins we left this area wild this year for the insects and butterflies. There is a large patch of nettles butterflies like to lay eggs on. This was where the pumpkins grew last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Poppies, these were huge pompom poppies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok and now for some of the holiday photos.. Carrying on the garden theme we we visited a wonderful Castle and Garden in Wales, called Picton Castle

Picton Castle

The gardens were set in 40 acres of land from the formal walled gardens with herbaceous boarders, its herb collection, to the wonderful woodland paths that surround it which of course I just had to explore those magnificent trees.

Inside the castle was no disappointment either it was stunningly beautiful.

 

 

But for me the gardens was where the’Wealth’ lay, with the fabulous shrubs and flowers.

 

So below is a collage of the garden and for those of us gardeners who now have electric lawn mowers, give a thought to those back in the early 1900’s who had to push and pull heavy lawn mowing machinery.

Me I did more than a little tree hugging

We also went to the smallest City in Wales, in fact St David’s is the smallest City in the UK. but boasts a wonderful Cathedral. So the next collage of photos are some views from  St Davids and some surrounding coast line.

Pembrookshire Coast Wales

St David’s

St David’s the smallest City in the UK The top of the Cathedral

St David’s Cathedral

I hope you are all enjoying your Summer in your own gardens and exploring more of your own countryside. 

Much love and 

HAPPY GARDENING!