Firsts

So, here it is,summer at last and with this glorious sunshine come the firsts; shorts revealing winter white legs, t shirts stretching across winter filled tummies and the sunglasses!

And too, the first lush blooms of the season, a rose or two, iris aplenty, aquilegias blooming their petals off, cornflowers, hardy geraniums, marigolds and the shrubs too bursting into bright pinks and purples. Aliums too are springing up all over the garden, often where I least expect them since I didn't make a plan when planting the bulbs last autumn. They are very striking and bear rounded heads of different sizes and colours made up of many tiny little starlets of flowers. Beautiful. Such a shame that they'll be merely flower heads by the open garden day. However, there is already one agapanthus in flower in the front garden with many more promised for later months so all is not lost.

The greenhouse is thriving with trays of seedlings waiting to be potted on or planted out. I continue to harden off some trays, have given several plants away and wonder what to do with those that are left. A bit of fundraising possibly on the open gardens day.

We now have a ninth gardener willing to open her plot to visitors, which is great - nine gardens all for £4, can't be bad. Looking forward to it and hoping for just a little bit more rain, at night, in the meantime. What are the chances?

May Blues

I'm sure it's entirely conicidental that in the week following Chelsea's recent FA Cup victory the garden seems to have come over all blue. Always a favourite time when the first flowers from Nigella ( love-in-the-mist) start to bloom and the eagerly awaited first Johnson's Blue hardy geraniums show their pretty faces. We're also still enjoying many many Forget-me-nots and lots and lots of bluebells, both native proper ones as well as those foreign upstarts. All welcome as far as I'm concerned since blue is my favourite colour, and this is a favourite time of year.

This week has been mixed weatherwise but we've achieved quite a bit in terms of gardening hours. David labours away at installing a handrail alongside the steep steps, which we both pretend is for the convenience of our Open Garden visitors, all the while inwardly heaving sighs of relief that it will last long after the visitors have gone and we can use it for ourselves. I on the other hand have applied myself to clearing a stretch of path which forms the boundary of our garden on the Folkestone side. This path was a 'find' some years ago having been laid by the previous owners and then covered by years of undergrowth. It needs constant attention to maintain it as a useful footpath and easily becomes submerged by falling leaves etc etc. With no official opening last year I confess to letting this path become neglected once again so set to this week to turn it round. Not such a difficult task since the ground is still quite damp and therefore weeds are more easy to pull up and soil easier to shift and after a couple of Woman's Hours and a really interesting and enjoyable Desert Island Discs with Tim Minchin we now have a passable pathway once more.

This photograph shows one of my current 'stars' in the garden. Cerinthe Major, something we first saw in gardens in our sons home village in Essex and which I first planted in our garden, as seeds, about four years ago. Previous results have been very poor but there must be something about our current weather conditions that favours this plant as it has self sown all over the garden and has been blooming now for several weeks. I like it best in that almost twilight hour after the sun has just set when it seems to glow fluorescently.

Another landmark today is that I've set out my first tomato plants in their final positions in the greenhouse. Using the large pots with their bases removed to make them into rings I've placed the first of my 'sungold' plants in the greenhouse border. I had previously dug in lots of our compost to enrich the soil so, given that they are under 'proper' glass this year I'm hopeful of a bumper crop. Other veg plants are progressing well and tonight we've eaten our first homegrown asparagus, this being the third year of our asparagus bed. However, I should be honest and tell you that our useable crop amounted to just one spear each, the rest having either already gone to fern, or being not yet big enough to cut! I will, as always, keep persevering in the hope of that all elusive feast to come.

Tulips and blossom

These bright tulips caught my eye just now as I ventured briefly into the garden to open up the greenhouse and let the air in. I photographed them on a much brighter day some time ago and they are still flowering magnificently. They are part of a 'bright' collection of tulip bulbs that I planted last autumn and now I know that all that bending and scooping out of soil was worth it. This brought to mind the municipal flower beds around the town and the amazing displays of tulips this year. I keep meaning to email the Parks Dept, or whatever they're called, to tell them just how uplifting it is as you approach Sandgate to see the flower bed just by the old primary school, and others in the area. A must on today's 'to do' list.

The all too brief season of cherry blossom in our garden is almost at an end with the white tree up in the top garden now completely flower free and the large pink tree outside our living room window, already shedding its petals with each gust of wind. Experience has taught me that it's best, as with the leaf drop later in the year, to let all the blossom fall before attempting to sweep it up. Hopefully by then a lot has just blown away too!

Another job on today's list is to plant out my sweetpeas which are actually looking a little faded at present. Looking back at my records I see that I was already cutting flowers on 15 May 2008 so I have obviously been a bit dilatory this year. I have no excuse, so today's the day, and fingers crossed they recover and go on to blooming success.