Soggy Early August

Despite the best efforts of the British summer, the garden has done some growing. The view above is the one that greets us as we come down our back stairs and open the garden door. The weather was very overcast when I took these this morning but the flowers still manage to shine. And the wet weather goes some way to explain the untrimmed grass!

The flowerbed at the back is looking very bright. I'm looking forward to the clematis which I've grown around the tree stump coming into flower, although that may not happen until next year. Amongst the flowers are 3 small 'Tophat' blueberry plants. These have not exactly yielded a bumper crop. The five solitary blueberries still look lovely, though! I'm going to re-pot them over the winter and move them to the other end of the garden as I suspect they need more sun.The veg bed is doing well. From this view you can see runner beans with butternut squash and a small courgette plant in front of it. Some cabbages, giant purple sprouting broccoli, then beyond that tomatoes. There are also chard and leeks which you can't see, plus lots of salad and french beans in pots near the house.
The runner beans are 'Liberty' and I think the red against the green looks wonderful, even in such flat light. Hope they taste as good!
The new neighbours have been nice, and very impressed by the work we did in the garden. One of the women lived here a few years ago, so knows what it looked like before! She has grown some tomatoes on her side (you can see some of them in the far left of the picture at the top of this post). Apparently, they have amazing beans in Bulgaria and she has promised to bring me some for next year (although, given the quick turnover of people in the downstairs flat, who knows how long she'll stick around, but I hope she does - it's great to have someone take an interest).