Sunshine in Cork!

 Sunshine has finally come our way after record breaking  rainfall and a so far dismal summer.Not much news from the allotment as we have not been there a lot of the time apart from watering the greenhouse.                             Today I had to go into the city, not a very lengthy journey ( 10 mins by car)but I am allergic to traffic jams, trying to get parking etc so only venture in when I have to!   The city fathers are dealing with cutbacks in funding from central  government but the flower displays around the city are stunning.These petunia towers looked fantastic near the river with our City hall in the background                                                        

In the garden this afternoon, I spotted this lupin coming through the greenery.I had forgotten all about it, it was bought last year at Bloom in Dublin and spent the winter languishing in its pot.It is Lupin Manhattan Lights

While inspecting the above I also spied this bare green spike and discovered it is another lupin spike of the same flower denuded of its buds by slugs!They have been out in force in the humid wet conditions of the last few weeks.

Next to my garden bench is a pot of petunias, fuchsias and lilies, all bought cheaply as tiny plug plants in Aldi. My cheerful Buddha seems to be enjoying the sun too and warming his wobbly bits!
So summer colour is coming into the garden which is recovering after the hen invasion of last year.
They are still in their enclosure at the end of the garden and I leave them out for a wander now and then when I can stay out to shoo them out of the flower beds!
Slugs, snails and rabbits have been busy out in the allotment and what the blight and bad weather have not damaged  they have.
We had to pull all of our onions as they were starting to rot from the continued wet and cold.We salvaged most of them and they are drying in the greenhouse.