How does your garden grow?

A few weeks ago this is how things looked out on the patio!  But since then with all the lovely sunshine and lots of watering from me, we have this:

and this

and this

We've also had some produce:

french beans and mange tout - grown in pots and for the first time!

Lovely potatoes grown in a disused dustbin and garden waste bag

my first time growing courgettes which we made into Nigel Slater's courgette, lemon, tomato and basil dish from his book Tender Volume 1.  We had it with butter beans in olive oil and mint and our lovely new potatoes - it was a feast!

How does your garden grow?

I love this stage in the year when so much is green and vibrant and when little seeds I have planted are now springing forth:

Don't you just love the smell of Basil? And for the first time I have had success with some lettuce (mazuma I think?) in a pot

Then there is the little strawberry plant in a pot which I have had for several years now and which keeps on producing fruit - just outside the kitchen door where I can see the red ripe berries

And then there's the potatoes which I planted at the end of March which are doing very well indeed. In fact even better than this photo which was taken a couple of weeks ago now - where does the time go?

I wouldn't call myself a gardener but I am learning and I love the fact that it is very much a question of 'have a go and see what happens' rather than about being too precise. The lawn needs another mowing but here it is freshly cut with the evening sun casting lattice shadows across it

I'm off to the garden museum in London today with a very dear friend who is off to South Africa on Saturday for a month to work with vulnerable adults and children with aids. I shall take my camera and share some pics of the museum and it's apparently wonderful cafe, (www.gardenmuseum.org.uk)another time.

Harvesting!

Back in March I planted some potatoes in two large containers and last weekend it was time to dig them up. Now we have a lovely lot of new potatoes to eat with our meals and don't they taste so different from those bought in the shop?

Good job I dug these babies up before all the rain we have had this week!