Dodging the raindrops

I managed to get into the garden for a few minutes between the rain showers today.  I didn't get chance to do any gardening but did take a moment to enjoy the flowers that are out now.  I'm very good at spotting all the weeding or plant maintenance that needs doing and not nearly good enough at enjoying the garden by just being in it and smelling the flowers.

Small daughter has been on a personal mission to count the number of bees in the garden.  I think this may be something of an impossible task but it's keeping her amused.  I've been doing my best to grow flowers that the bees will like and this spring the garden has been full of foxgloves, Welsh poppies and aquilegia, most of them self-seeded from last year's flowers.

I love to hear the bees buzzing inside the flowers, particularly foxgloves.  I have both white and pink foxgloves this year; the white are my favourite and I try to make sure that the seed from those is scattered generously about.

I also took a quick look at the vegetable garden.  I don't have a great deal of space to grow vegetables as I want them to be as close to the kitchen as possible, but it's all made much easier now that I've got my raised beds.  This will be the third year that I've used them and it's made a massive difference - I can keep the soil levels up quite easily, it's easier to control the slugs and snails and it looks tidier than my previous vegetable patch.  

Everything's doing very well now after a slow start.  We had our first courgettes last night (niftily hidden in leek and potato soup), the mange tout peas are finally producing pods.  This year I've planted climbing French beans for the first time so it will be exciting to see how they turn out.  The carrots have recovered from the cats rolling all over them in the sunshine a few weeks ago and I think the baby beetroot are almost ready for harvesting.  Happy times!