With a mere three weeks until summer, the weather has finally come around to my way of thinking. Less rain, less wind and less hail. More sun, more blue skies and more awesomeness.
I turned around today and looked at my garden in its entirety instead of a disjointed collection of things that need doing and realised – “oh my goodness – I’m there.” Aside from the flower garden and the pumpkin bed, the garden is all as it should be and the panic of the past weeks is over. With a bit of luck I can fall into the ebb and flow of watering and weeding and a bit of general maintenance until the full onslaught of the harvest catches up with me.
The afternoon was just too lovely for words and so I decided to capture it in pictures instead and tried to implement some of the techniques I learnt in my first week of WordPress Photography School.
Come again soon – I want to take you on another tour and I’m especially proud of my onions. I can’t wait to show them too you!
Sarah the Gardener : o )
Thanks for sharing your garden with us. It is beautiful…. and impressive. Would be amazing to have so much land, flat ground and sun!
Hi Karuna. We are truly blessed to have so much space to grow what we need. The sun hasn’t always been a faithful friend lately as this spring has brought more rain than sunshine. But summer is around the corner and I can hardly wait.
Cheers Sarah : o )
It is always interesting to her from people whose seasons are opposite from ours. Here it is getting colder and colder. Expecting the first freeze tomorrow or the day after.
I will be leaving for India the end of the month. I’m really looking forward to being warm there. Hopefully not too warm! 🙂
Hi Sarah,
Good photos – glad you had some good weather eventually.
I prefer the horizontal photo of the chives, but would it have been possible to show the top of the buds, if not I think I would have cut them off. Probably not possible but could you get space between the front flower and the one behind it by taking from a different angle? I prefer the horizontal one of the tomatoes although I would have expected the subject to be more suited to a vertical picture. I think I like the way the wires come in from the edges of the picture. The artichoke and potato flowers look great on the thirds. Please feel free to critique any of my photos – it is so useful.
Thanks Annette for your feedback. I still have a lot to learn. There is so much to think about when composing photos, and add to that the wind blowing your subject about – it can get quite interesting.
Cheers Sarah : o )
There is certainly a lot to think about. I have only ever done one photography course, but it was drummed into us to look round the edges of the photo. I don’t always remember, but thankfully there is always cropping.
The wind, however, there is not much we can do about that!
How could you go wrong photographing such lovely subjects? And yes, I am quite envious of your weather.
Hi there. You are too kind. I still have loads to learn about getting the best shot. Although I don’t imagine too many photographers eat their subjects afterwards! The day was gorgeous, but having said that, we haven’t had too many days like it lately.
Cheers Sarah : o )
I really do think that you are trying to make me twitch with that picture of artichokes. I hurled my huge 15 foot, possum snapped plant into an enormous pile of compost but noticed yesterday that it appears to be climbing out of the top of the compost and suspiciously has 3 chokes on it…can artichokes keep growing once they are broken off? Or is mine a zombie artichoke! Love the sunny shots, your garden looks positively brimming with gorgeous life and can’t wait to see how everything goes. I have the chive flowers and 2 tomato plants and that’s about all for now BUT soon I will be planting out all kinds of things (growing in pots) including 4 pepino bushes that a friend sent me. I love the possibilities of growing things and how good it feels after a serious day in the garden. Gardeners sleep the righteous sleep of the semi-comatose 😉
Hi Fran. I’m not sure about the artichoke regrowing, but my guess is it might be like a yucca plant, because each year the new growth comes from the side of the old stem like pups – so maybe you have just relocated your artichoke to the compost pile – move over pumpkins! I’ve not grown pepinos before, I’ll be interested to see how you find them. But it would have to be a plant for next year – the garden is full. The carobs are doing well too!
Cheers Sarah : o )
Once the carob germinate there is no stopping them. Ours have suffered some serious neglect and are thriving despite it all. There is a small (about 7ft tall) carob tree on one of our walks and it is growing in some seriously hardpan clay that is dried like ceramic and it never flags even when it gets hot in the middle of summer. It doesn’t appear to be watered at all and it just keeps on growing. If that little tree can survive, I figure ours are living the life of spoiled gentry! I am hoping that my artichoke survives. I dragged it (slowly, befitting a funeral procession) from where the possums snapped it off at the base (which is already regrowing 🙂 ) all the way up to Sanctuary (with a most interested Earl following close behind) and struggled with it through the door (it was a very big, very heavy plant!) and hauled it onto the compost heap and then covered it over with spent horse manure and rotting oak leaves. I gave it a good send off and then it started to poke out of the top of the compost heap and it now has 3 chokes growing on it that it most certainly didn’t have when I threw it there and it is looking most alive and animated when it should be rotting down. I am hoping that like my Lazarus almond, it has come back to life! The pepino’s are doing amazingly well but I am going to have to spray them with garlic and cayenne spray as the aphids have found them and so have the white fly. Time to spray the glasshouse from top to bottom methinks as that is where all of my seedling babies are! You either love pepinos or you don’t. I don’t mind them and they make another useful plant to add to the mix 🙂
Your pics are looking good, especially the close ups. Your garden is nice also.
Thanks April.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Hurray for you, Sarah! The reward of all your hard work paid off in the end. Delightful.
Hi Alys. I think I am nearly at the stage where the proper hard work – digging and stuff is over. I just need to get on now with keeping on top of it all until the harvest comes.
It would be nice if the weather sorted it self out!
Cheers Sarah : o )