Spring showers

 The unsettled weather of spring has continued, with wind, rain, sun and storms frequently throughout the course of a single day. Currently the lawn is sprinkled with discarded blossom petals which blew down in the storm that raged for most of the weekend. Now the clouds have cleared and hot sun is shining, all the better to germinate my newly sown lawn seed.

 The potager is still producing steadily. I'm harvesting carrots, leeks, 'Purplette' onions, lettuce, silver beet, spring onions and herbs. I've planted my seed potatoes and sown peas and snow peas. I've got bean seeds to sow and tomato and pepper seedlings to go out when the weather is settled.

In the glasshouse I've already potted up tomatoes and peppers, and I have gherkins ready to be potted. The strawberries are blooming and tiny green fruits are forming. I have two pots of peas slowly succumbing to mildew. The pods are now ready so I'll harvest those, then the gherkins can go in their place.

 The silver beet in the potager is getting ready to bolt to seed, as it always does in October. I need to thin these pansies and phacelia out but I just can't bring myself to - they are good for the bees so it's good companion gardening!

 The curved garden I extended last year is filling in. The mounds of geranium, catmint and lambs ears are a good ground cover, and as the summer progresses the taller plants will appear - verbascum, sweet peas, dahlias and chrysanthemums. 

There are still a few pops of colour from the ranunculus. In the back left corner is a new delphinium, Astolat, which has held its own against the wind.

I'm off to put on my sun hat and windproof coat to plant out the next batch of spring onions. Hope you're having fun in your garden this weekend.