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.