Getting Green Fingers This Summer!

This summer I have been very busy in my garden. Last year, it was my first year practicing and finding out about my new home. I have a number of trees but last year only saw a plum or two.     This year the tree has blossomed and I have mountains of plums. Which my lovely nan has been busy making them into jam!

We have also found out we have an apple and pear tree. There is quite a few pears but only a
couple of apples. At the weekend I also discovered there caterpillars amongst my willow tree. First I found one, then I discovered 5, all eating away at the leaves. After researching I do believe it is a hawk eye moth. I will keep an eye out incase they change. I was surprised how huge they was.
I also felt lucky when I discovered this clover hiding behind my herbs!

I absolutely love my garden, it is definitely a new hobby I love. Its such a shame summer is coming to an end but I will still continue to spend time tidying when I can. This year I have managed a crop of blackcurrants, potatoes, peas, runner beans, onions, and some raspberries and strawberries. We have just planted a blue berry bush so hopefully this will be growing and produce a few in the future :)

My love of growing vegetables.

Well a few months a go I adopted a vegetable patch and some little trees. Now a few months down the line I have blackcurrents, potatoes and some other vegetables (fingers crossed).

With some little help from my nan I turned these black currents into a jam. I did taste one straight off the bush and it is fair to say it wasn't as nice as it smelt. It smelt like Ribenna but tasted extremely sour.

To make it into jam we placed the currents in a pan and added lots of sugar, stirring whilst their boiled.

Then leaving them to cool the next day I ended up with some jam on toast. I'm sure to make a more nicer jam it would need some extra steps but I was just to excited to experiment.

Then I had all this open space with the odd little plant starting to emerge. I then realised these were potatoes and decided to plant some more. This was the beginning of May. With all the contrasting weather, rain, sun, more sun, more rain, the combination started the potato plants to grown.

We have a lot of cats in the area to to try keep them off I added some netting. Then when the plants started to emerge I began to bank the sooil up around the potatoes. This helps the roots under the flower to grow making potatoes!

And grew...

They then grew...

And grew... I then also planted onion, carrots, runner beans, peas and spring onions. We will see how these grow. I do see some onions emerging. And here you have it! I have some potatoes! These are just a few of the plants that emerged. I cannot believe how many I have so far! Hopefully they will keep me going a while. :) So impressed! Even if I say so myself!