A surplus of vegetables from the garden

It is always great when it gets to midsummer and the garden is over-producing as it feels good to be able to hand on goodies to friends and neighbours. We are at that stage just now, with an over supply of caulis, brocolli, broccoflower, cabbage, spinach. There is only a certain amount that we can eat, and everything comes at once. Dwarf and climbing beans are just coming on-stream, and we still have beans in the freezer from last year!
We think that we should have enough potatoes to do us for the whole year, now we have 20 planted in buckets as well as five rows in the garden.
We had such a great crop on our cherries this year, we were able to give some to all our neighbours, and only their second year! One Lapin, was better than the Rainier on which the fruit split, slightly earlier ripening though. We now have Moorpark apricots ready on a first year tree, about 40 fruit.... nothing like a tree ripened apricot though!

One of my favourite flowers

 

I found a lot of sweet pea seeds I had saved in the spring, and these are the result, aren't they just beautiful? Pity I can't share the perfume with you, is just divine.

A New Start

I have not been blogging for some months, as have been unwell, but the health is improving, and being a new year thought I should show you some lovely clematis that are flowering in the garden just now.
Most of these have been established now for about three years, and are really "doing their thing".
I do like clematis as companions to roses, and most of mine are growing along with climbing roses.
This year I planted a lot of sweet peas, and now realise how, that if you want them to keep flowering you have to pick them every day, so all the neighbours get bunches as well as inside our own home. The perfume is just divine.
Last winter we laid a lot of pea straw over the garden as a mulch, I certainly do not like the look of it at first, but it certainly takes care of a lot of the weeding, as laid newspapers underneath it. We now have a source of wood shavings removed from calf rearing sheds, along with the manure, and using that for mulch as well. A lot of dairying is done around here, and all we have to do is go and bag up as much of last season's as we want.
My daughter came down for Christmas and brought with her 25 20 litre plastic buckets, which we are growing potatoes in, starting at the bottom with rotting straw, and as the potatoes appear covering with this calf "poo". It took just 20 days for the buckets to be full of manure, and the potatoes out the top, so are hoping what is underneath is as good as what is on top.