Summer sunshine....

...and showers....in Molokoloko Garden this week.

Rudbekia and lavender

Sunshine and showers make vegetables and flowers....

This week I showed Leah that you can pick up a bumble bee if you are gentle.   We found one that was crawling laboriously along the patio paving.  I think he had run out of 'juice' and needed a drink.   So I put my finger gently in front of him, when he had climbed on I took him to a bush where there were flowers aplenty to find a drink.   They can sting.   Usually they don't if you are gentle, they are very placid bees.   I love them.  Bees are becoming more and more scarce we need to treasure all our bees.

Mine are loving the meadow.   The clover is out, it is a real larder for them.  So are the lavender and the  alliums in full bloom now.

I got very excited yesterday when I discovered the Passiflora had its first blossom.   I only planted the vine this season.   It has clambered up the one side of the arch loving where I have placed it.

Passiflora bloom

The other side of the arch has the Bridge of Sighs orangy-yellow climbing rose.   That has done so well  too, but its growth pattern is different to that of the Passiflora so I expect it will be next year before I see an abundance of purple passiflora and yellow roses entwined.

July is the month the harvest starts in earnest.   I am eating home grown cucumbers, beans, potatoes.

Still to come are the currants, red and black, the butternut, the courgettes are disappointing, tomatoes are looking good at the moment...and see how the sweetcorn is tassling up.

Poppies among the sweetcorn.

Here is one close up...

Baby sweetcorn growing up

I experimented with a bit of mixed planting.   I think I planted potatoes too close to the apple tree.   Apparently they don't do well if too close to each other.   The potatoes are fine, but I think I didn't get as high a yield as I might have if I'd not planted so close to the apple tree.   The apples are almost non-existent this year.   Possibly because the potatoes are too close?   Maybe because winter was so mild.   Some fruit trees like a hard frost to fruit well, plums and cherries do I think.   Maybe apples do too.  Maybe the tree is sick, some of the leaves are a bit rusty.   I'll have to check it out.

This week I have been busy feeding everything in pots.   Trying to get things as easy as possible for G to water while I am away next week for a week.  So I took cut stuff to the tip, put Rose Clear on the roses, some of them have bad black spot and staked and tied up other plants that may blow or fall over.

The ox-blood red clematis is really flowering well this year.  Some things are amazing some disappointing - that is how gardening is.

I don't tell you all about my failures....I have plenty.  But I thought I would just say that I do have failures, and mistakes, more than the successes.   I think most self-taught gardeners do....and I have a special message for Sally...really just go out there and try.   I know there is complicated science behind gardening but most of us just stick things in the ground and learn by trying.   If you can find out what conditions the plants/seeds/cuttings prefer you will be onto a success story.  One word of warning...gardening is addictive.  The good news is the side effects are mostly very pleasant...ignore aching back, sunburn and permanently black fingernails...

Fuchsia

Now I am off to Sweden next week...A-K, the Hibiscus cutting you grew and gave me to smuggle back last year is triple its size and full of buds.   I am so looking forward to seeing your garden and as many others as possible!

Chat to you again on my return and thank you G, in advance, for looking after my garden while I am away, and JP too!

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise. ~Michael P. Garofalo