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I couldn't put this page up in June as it would tell too many strangers that I was leaving the house empty for much of June - something unusual for me as there is so much to be done in the garden at this time of the year.
I spent the early part of the month changing the hanging baskets and tubs over from pansies to surfinias and getting other plants into the soil before I flew off to Ireland. I spent hours pulling out the spent forget-me-nots ( a comparatively easy task but one that covers clothing with clinging seeds in the shape of tiny green balls0. After clearing out the forget-me-nots I was left with the more arduous task of digging out the weeds that had hidden beneath their foliage. I filled 20 manure sacks with weeds waiting to be composted in my daleks and also creating ten fresh moranges in strategic plaes round the garden. I also filled several of the council's large green composting bags with convolvulus and ground elder that survive my inferior composting processes.
We had rain in Ireland on several days but back in Leicester it was dry with higher than usual temperatures.
I had arranged for someone to water the greenhouse, the pots and hanging baskets daily so they looked good when I arrived back home on the 1st of July. Much of the garden, however, was a disaster area. The strawberies, that had promised a bumper crop, had shrivelled to nothing,the potatoes grown in bags were hanging down limp and browning. The blackcurrants were half their normal weight.
Before I left I had made myself a mini raspberry pavlov using raspberries from the previous year's shoots of Joanne J that had survived the winter. On my return, the raspberries still ripening on the old shoots were dry and small. In strong contrast this year's growth is lush so I may yet have a good autumn crop.
The loganberries and blackberries survived unscathed, so surprisingly had the runner beans, but the lettuces had bolted.
I had hoped more of last year's dahlias would have come up by the time I returned but there were no pleasant surprises there.
Still I shouldn't grumble. We may have had a bad winter here but County Carlow, where my son lives, had worse. Usually their winters are milder than ours but they had a really cold snap lasting several days when the temperature dropped to minus 12. All over Carlow I saw dead yuccas, yet a few miles away down on Ireland's South East coast the yuccas were in splendid bloom. I don't usually rate yuccas as a plant but this year they were quite spectacular.
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