May in my Garden. A record for me to look back on.

Bear with my poor photos for a while.  I'm afraid I am between cameras at the moment and am making do with my Sony Ericsson Satio. My photography degree is rather wasted on me at the moment.  But I really want to have record here of what is growing, where and how so I can refer back to it this time next year.

My babies - peas, mangetout, mixed leaves, pumpkins, beetroot - honest I swear they're there!



 My main veggie patch looks so tiny in this picture. And now you can see why I am so frustrated by feeling as though we are an entire season behind the rest of the UK here on the west of Scotland!  Everything is still so small!



Ha ha! Check out how badly our grass needs a trim

This is the smaller veggie patch.  From the bottom there are 3 rows of Celariac, interspersed with scarlet red radishes (sown today); then 3 rows of beetroot & 3 rows of rocket (also sown today).  At the top are 3 small but happy courgettes, a few rows of spinach with lettuce planted between.

Some things are doing fantastically, for instance this planter with spicy leaves and pea shoots by the front door.  I didn't have high expectations for this spot as it doesn't get as much sun as other areas and yet these babies are far stronger than any others in sunnier spots in the garden!

 The pot grown lettuce is much happier than it's siblings in the veggie patches.

 And then some others are sadder stories.  Only 2 out of the 4 fruit trees I planted last Autumn have survived.  Both the cherry trees seem to have died, but the apple trees are starting to shoot a few tentative leaves and buds.

Today I had grand plans to thin and transplant my carrot seedlings into their proper homes in the larger veggie patch.  I have been saving toilet roll tubes to grow them in to see if they grow longer since I think my soil is quite heavy.  I'm also going to grow a few in a large planter to see which is more successful.  If I ever get the time to do so!  I hate thinning so keep putting it off....

 And then there are the surprises!

Despite trying  (and failing) to stick to my plans and sketches I keep fnding random seedlings in places I don't expect them.  Now either I am sowing things under the influence of the vino blanco on Saturday nights and not remembering or something else is afoot here.

Then today I had an idea.... the compost heap.  I had thrown a pumpkin into the compost heap last winter that we never got to eat and had started to decay.  I reckon this is where some of the seedlings are coming from. As you can see these babies rather dwarf my wee beetroot seedlings (still to be thinned also!) so I knew that I hadn't intended for them to be bed buddies.  So I have moved them to the furthest corner of my patch so they can spread out over the grass if they wish to mature and stick around.