An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

Aisling my daughter and Kevin's Mom gave birth to Baby Scott at 7.40am on 31st July. he weighed in at a whopping 8lb 11 ozs! Baby Scott is just 36 hours old here, he was looking around at everyone, wondering why everyone was looking at him! Kevin my gardener in chief is a little in awe of his baby brother Scott.

Zwena , our allotment owner is a great believer in the natural order of things and some plants are allowed to go to seed just for the beauty of them, to add interest to the overall picture. These are some leeks with seed heads in various shades of purple next to some sweet peas. My Coriander plant went to seed! Not very easy to see in the photo, it is the tall brownish spindly plant in the centre! It just bolted upwards producing lovely white flowers and it is now covered in seed heads which have a wonderful smell. I will save some of the seeds and see what happens. Liam's Gladioli bunches just coming into bloom! There are a lot of flowers planted around the allotment also which I will photograph and post later.

Flowers need not be regimented in flower pots, anything can be recycled and planted up with colourful annuals to brighten up a dark or uninteresting corner. I revamped my bathroom last year and repositioned the loo! I had the bath dumped but on reading scarecrows garden blog recently I realised I could have made a substantial aquatic garden with it grr..... . The watering can was returned to the store where I worked last year as it was leaking at the joints. It was going to be put in the dumper for disposal when I made a reasonable offer for it! The blue flower pot was broken on one side so now it is turned on that side and the small alpine plant looks as if it is spilling out of it on to the plate.

I usually have a plant or two of lavender growing at home but have never done anything with it, I just leave the flowers on until they die off. I would break off a flower in passing and crush it in my hand to release the perfume. The sight and smell and the sound of bees humming through it is one of those memorable signs of summer so badly needed here this horrible wet year. Last year I planted 4 plants out in the allotment, this year the plants had grown huge with lots of stems. After cutting off all the stems I realised I did not have any photos of the lavender in bloom so I had to go through nearly all my photos to find one that had them in one corner! I cropped the photo and it actually looks quite 'arty'. As if I posed the blue shovel handle to accentuate the lavender flowers!! This year the plants had grown fairly big and I thought it was a shame to just leave the flowers to be blown down by the wind or leave them to fade on the plant. Aisling ( the lady still in wai...

The last of our second early potatoes! We had a very good crop of all sizes and shapes, but at least we did not lose any to blight, which was a worry for a while. Anyone I gave some to and our own verdict was 'Great balls of Flour'! Ben, one of my grandsons picking out the last one! I had cut back the stalks to stop the blight going down to the tubers. Ben like the others was fascinated to see the potatoes in the ground. This is our main crop of potatoes towards the middle of July. They have been sprayed with 'bluestone'. The Bordeaux Mixture i s a commercial product of this old time spray for potato blight. While the Bordeaux mixture is convenient there is not much coverage in one box. It only mixes 7litrs for approx 5.95e. The Bluestone can be bought in the farmers co ops. It is bought loose and mixed with washing soda.The ratio is; 10lbs washing soda to 8 lb bluestone to make 44gallons. I used 2 1/2 lbs washing soda to 2 lbs of bluestone. It made 10 gallons for appr...

Noreen, a friend of mine went to Crete on holidays recently and took this photo! I thought it is an ingenious way of shading the hydrangeas from the heat of the sun. I think it is a terrific holiday snap, I can almost feel the heat!

One of the overfed fat rabbits at the entrance to the cornfield, we were in the car about 6 ft away and it just stared at us! They seem to have no fear of cars or people coming and going. Peppers growing in the greenhouse, we seem to have a glut of these but we will just have to wait and see if we get a glut of peppers! The large one in the black pot has a lot of flowers on it. Not a great crop of tomatoes but they are improving! They are being watered regularly this week and there is a big difference. They have been sprayed for blight and are being fed once a week. I am religously removing side shoots since I discovered what they are, they seem to be the fastest growing part of the plant! I also pinched off the growing tips as there are enough trusses on each plant now. Notice how I am throwing in the gardener speak there! The courgette in the greenhouse.These 2 seem to be doing OK but we have lost about 4 to what I think is blossom end rot?! They get a discoloured soft patch at th...