July Garden

Bishop of Llandaff Dahlia

Picking raspberries and
strawberries in the rain!

Gooseberries from one bush -
some frozen and
other made into gooseberry fool - yum

Redcurrants ripening -
didn't manage to get many of these -
 the birds got there first!

Blueberries on their way

We have been enjoying the peas
straight from their pods

Beans starting to grow

Never knew potatoes had such lovely flowers

In the green house

Tomatoes starting to form

Peppers

Cucumber

In the front garden

The fig is taking over

Looking forward to these all ripening

Love the nasturtiums - so bright and tasty in a salad!

Begonia firecracker

Stipa Gigantia

Day Lily

Highlights of the back garden

Japenese Anenome

Pink hydrangea

Lace cap hydrangea

Innula

Buddleia

Blossom cordial

We have been enjoying a good spell of summer days this last few weeks and have been enjoying sitting in the garden sipping our home made elderflower cordial which we make this time every year.

However this week I noticed our lime tree was in flower and as we studied it in our nature time last year had found that these flowers can be used to flavour drinks too. By the time we discovered this we were too late last year to collect any flowers, so I was determined I wouldn't miss it this year.

Some of the branches needed pruning to lift the canopy a little, so Paul chopped and then Amy and I picked all the flowers off with their bracts.

I used half the flowers to make cordial today with a very simple recipe:

500g sugar

500mls water

couple of handfuls of blossom

Dissolve the sugar in the water and then throw in the blossoms. Simmer for 5 mins, then cool and strain.

That's it!

We enjoyed our first taste with tea today - its very sweet with a sort of honey flavour - delicious with water or lemonade.

The rest of the blossoms are drying to be kept for making linden tea as mentioned here.

I shall look forward to trying them in a week or two.

Can't believe I've lived in this house for 15 years and only just discovered I have these edible flowers in my back garden!

Summer Tree Study - Oak

We have had some lovely summer days the past few weeks and today we sat out in the garden to finish our year long tree study on our Oak tree.

We looked at the acorns in Autumn, bark and silhouette in Winter and the buds in spring and today on this lovely sunny day we took a look at the leaves.

We noticed the new growth and how the colour and texture of the new leaves was vastly different to the more mature leaves.

We had missed the flowering stage but we talked about how the oak has male and female flowers. Here is an image of the male flowers - drooping catkin like.

The female flower is much smaller and situated where the leaf attaches to the stalk. The catkin release several million pollen grains which are blown by the wind in the hope of pollinating the female flower, which them develops into the acorn.

Wow I never knew this about the oak tree - I must look out for the flowers next year - although as I mentioned in the last tree study its not always easy to observe as the branches start fairly high up! I trimmed the end of this branch so we could have a closer look to see if we could spot the acorns developing. This looks like them ; ) I also didn't realise that some oak trees have acorns that take 1 year to mature while other varieties take 2 years.

Here are the children enjoying their outdoor time.

And here are there notebook pages along with leaf rubbings.

I've really enjoyed our year long tree study and will definitely be choosing another tree to study next year

June garden

The Acers are all looking lovely

Day Lily

Allium

Paeony

Honeysuckle

Black elder

Iceberg rose

Bee visiting the geranium

Sedum

Buddlia

Paul threw some old carrot seeds into a pot
 not expecting them to germinate

How wrong can you be!

Radish

Guess who found the first strawberry 3/6

Raspberries on their way

and peas too

Blueberries forming

First peas

First raspberries 17/6

Potatoes flowering