Hello fellow gardeners,
The weather has been warm and dry a few weeks ago, which was followed by two weeks with a lot of heavy rains. It was a bit all or nothing I guess 🙄
I watered the plants during the dry period and they have now received a lot of rain. But the condition of the plants is quite mixed. Some are doing really well, while others are clearly struggling. Actually quite a few of them are having issues this year. But I'm not giving up and going to make the best of it.
Here's an overview of the different plants.

The vegetable garden

I had planted out the beans. They are supported by bamboo sticks and slowly started to climb. They do look a bit spindly. And the lower leaves also are turning yellowish. Maybe I didn't give them enough water during the drought.

There are some flowers, which I assume will turn into beans later, don't they? But I also spotted some aphids 😒
Last year I had them as well on some other plants and spraying them with a mixture of water and dish soap got rid of them back then, so I need to try that again.

Cucumbers

Against the fence I've also planted a couple of cucumber plants. They also suffered a bit because of the draught. The bottom leaves look really sad, but the ones higher up the stem look fine. It even is producing some flowers, which, as far as I know, indicates the it might going to grow fruits too.

And when I looked very closely in between the leaves of one of the plants, I spotted the start of a very tiny cucumber 🎉
I have five plants in a row, so I'm quite confident that they don't all die. I'm still waiting for them to hit that growth spurt and climb up the bamboo stick. I have good hopes that they will thrive and I will be able to eat some cucumbers later this year.

Plum tree

A couple of weeks ago I thinned out the plum tree. There were a lot of plums clustered together which needed to have more space to grow. I really removed over 100 of tiny plums or so. But there are still 30-40 left.

I did notice one plum with a transparent, kind of gel-like substance on it. I've seen this before last year on many of them and read it was a kind of insect that lays eggs inside the plum 🫨
I removed the plum immediately and checkted a couple of others. But for now it was only this one.
I also have to find my net again so I can protect the plums from the birds before they start to ripen.

Apple tree

OK, now it's time for some more positive news. The apple tree is really doing well. I removed some apples that were to close together, but I have about 15 apples left on the tree. They kind of differ in size, but they are slowly growing bigger. Some of them are also starting to turn a bit red.
They still need quite some more time to grow though. Also this tree needs to be covered with a net soon.

Raspberries

Some more good news. The raspberry was a bit late this year, but it started to deliver some really nice fruits. It's really nice to have some sweet, freshly picked raspberries in my yoghurt with muesli in the morning.

Some more vegetables

I have some beetroot and cherry tomatoes. Only I am a bit hesistant to put them direcly into the soil yet. They still look a bit vulnerable. It has been raining quite severe lately and with the hard wind, so I kept them in their pots for now. But since the weather has changed I might be planting them soon.

The ugly

This Portugese Laurel was moved from one side of the garden to another. That was a couple of weeks ago, but at the moment some of its leaves are starting to turn brown. It might have taken a hit from the movement because I probably cut some of it roots by doing this. I hope it will recover from this because it's one of my evergreens which give my garden some color in winter.

Another 'problem child' is my butterfly bush. I noticed some deformed leaves on it which I thought were caused by a disease. But when I took a closer look I noticed the stem was covered in aphids 😡. Did I already mention I really hate aphids? So this one needs a dish soap treatment too.

Great Oxeye

One of my favorite plants is doing very well again. It actually does every year. It dies off completely in winter, but grows so quickly in spring and produces so manu lovely yellow flowers in summer. A real eye cather which also attracts a lot of butterflies and bees.

One stem produces a couple multiple flowers. The petals are very thin, but the kernel of the flower is big and round. It slowly turns into a bulb and finally turns brown.
This year I will try to safe the dried out flowers, so I can collect the seeds. I want to try and grow some new ones from the seeds.

Mint, mint, mint...

I already posted about it in my previous blogs, but I planted three types of mint; regular, Marroccan and chocolate mint. I've put most of them inside a basket into the ground to prevent it from spreading all around the garden, which works. By cutting of the tops they procude more side stems and the plant will become more bushy.

We often drink tea by putting the leaves in some hot water for a couple of minutes. It's very tasty and besides that very healthy too!

So, this was my gardenupdate for now. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, comments or tips; feel free to react in the comment section.

Happy gardening!

Friendlymoose

I'm an amateur photographer with a love for indoor gardening, craft beer, and cycling. As the owner of the Cycling Community and the creator of the Topcomment initiative, I focus on fostering engagement and bringing like-minded people together.
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