Fairy crowns and butterflies

Well its a long time since my last entry....so much going on.....such as visits to the beach at Pett Level!! I have also been making lavender bags for the yurts and the shepherd`s hut, using our own lavender. 

Catching up today as we`ve had a few showers. Its very muggy here, with showers after they promised us 30 degrees plus.

We`ve had 2 visits to the garden over the past few days so quite a few photos to share. It is taking at least half an hour to sort out everything we bring home. Its either to eat, to freeze, to dry or

 place in vases round the house. 

 Today I have frozen 5 x 12 oz bags of tomatoes and there will be French beans to do later.

I have experimented with the helichrysum flowers, making fairy crowns. I used a glue gun to stick them to a fairly thick pipe cleaner, adding artificial leaves in between. They are finished off with ribbons and glitter. Now I need a model. I can`t quite get away with looking like a fairy!!!

I have had to cut my lovely long nails which grew so well in Meganisi.  I can`t stand gardening with them like that. I like to get my hands in the dirt.

The butterflies are well and truly out and about. Hooray! They just love the buddliea.

 These are Small Tortoiseshells.

This is just one pepper plant in a growbag. I am very pleased with it.

We`ve had to stop the pumpkins as their growth is up to 15 feet or more in places. We want all the growth to go into the actual pumpkins. This one is a good size already.

The sweetpeas are amazing. Today we cut every flower off in order to keep them going, especially the seedheads. Those of you who follow Monty Don on Gardeners World would have seen 

him doing this last night.

The comfrey which we planted under the eaves of the barn is doing very well. It will make a welcome addition to the compost heaps.

Plenty of flowers on the 3rd bean row and plenty of beans so far. What a good job they were planted at different times. This will ensure that we have beans for a long period.

The cosmos are very pretty in pastel pinks and whites.

Finally it was lovely to talk to campers today who came last year. They were interested to see the changes. They showed particular interest in the cob shed and we looked at the sedum beds which are filling out so well. We really must get down to more work on the cobbing. Anne has been working on it and I felt quite guilty not helping.....there was soooo much to harvest and deadhead and that just can`t be put off.

It was nice to hear compliments about the garden too.