Sweet Summer Sensations, continued.

Ten days ago, I posted a note about my first artichoke. This is it today. It's almost as big as my fist and has six little siblings following in its footsteps. These footsteps will take it into the kitchen today, where it will be lovingly praised and then prepared as an appetizer to a special dinner Alastair and I have planned.

Not counting leafy contributions, this will be the first produce from our garden.

Let the games begin!

Our Assistant Gardener.

This little guy is an English Robin. He's about four inches high and has toothpick legs. Extremely curious and not afraid of making eye contact, robins often perch inches from us whilst we garden. This week I witnessed a robin and its baby working out just how to have breakfast. It's been fascinating to see the baby discover our garden. Interestingly, the baby is bigger than its parent.

My Birthday Lychnis

Front Garden, 10 May

Sweet Summer Sensations

See the tiny beginnings of my very first artichoke... yes, mine and I'm not sharing. It's embedded deep in the plant, which grows in a pretty agreeable site considering that it's doubled in size since I transplanted it. I hope this little bud will be the first of many. That is if the sun shines again. Yes, that's right, after 48 days of dry relatively pleasant weather, we've had almost seven days of constant moisture.

Cloche city.

Baby rainbow swiss chard.

On the 48th day, it rained.

It's been 47 days since our last rainfall, and yesterday it rained almost all day, much to the chagrin of Alastair as he pedaled his way north to Kings Lynn (unfortunately, he was rained out). It's been so long since it has rained that I just couldn't be anything but thrilled for the moisture. It seems that wherever I live I am followed by drought conditions. This is probably good because I'm fairly used to the conditions, know how to garden in it and am not put off by the warm weather.

After the rain, we were treated with a double full rainbow with all seven colors, it was spectacular and of course, short lived. It disappeard almost before our very eyes, well enjoyed whilst we had it.

Now our rain catchers are on there way to being filled and there's more rain to come this week. I suppose this is good, but it smarts just a little bit to get go of all that warm weather.

Waiter, there's a frog in my...

Yes, there is it. Spotted by Alastair a couple of evenings ago hidden behind a planter minding its own business.

So, what does this mean? Well, the more wildlife we have in our garden the more balanced it is. So far, our visitors have included a bevy of birds, including goldfinch and a woodpecker, four types of bees, at least two species of ants, a hedgehog and now a frog.

Frogs are pretty common, with artificial ponds in a lot of back gardens. But our garden has been so bereft of nature that this frog sighting offers hope that we're headed in the right direction.

Rhubarb, March 2007

Iris Bed, March 2007

Our Garden Blog

Alastair had a wonderful idea this weekend. He suggested that we blog a garden journal to note our work and progress. The natural thing to do is to share it with our friends and family who are curious about the attempts at xeroscaping and our productiong of tomatillos in a land where the physallis is only noted for the Cape Gooseberry. I need to give credit where credit it due and acknowledge the wonders of the Cape Gooseberry which is found atop many a wonderful pudding (dessert) here in the UK.

So here goes...