As one might expect, Mum’s (and her twin sister’s, my Auntie Sue-Sue) 60th birthday went just fably! Lovely big fambly meal down the pub, much annoying of other patrons as we swapped embarassing stories about each other whilst laughing loudly followed by Tea On The Lawn (minus cucumber sarnies - we’re not a posh fambly).
Mum had a whizzo day and is dead chuffed with the tickets for a big Show in London + hotel that my Bro, Sis and I chipped in for.

And so, to detract from the Wot-I-Did-On-My-Holidays-ness thus far endured, here’s how my Grandad (who knows a thing or two about growing stuff) caught me out when I showed him some pics of all the stuff we’ve grown in our garden:

Grandad: What do you put on your Rhubarb, then?
Me: Well, compost of course.
Grandad: I prefer custard myself.

I hope one day I’ll be as quick as him.

‹Is now fully ready for anything that w**k might throw at me tomorrow!›

I may not be all that good at gardening but one thing I can do right is make compost.

This weekend, The Wife and I have been sorting out the back garden. It will all be lawned seeing as we now have an allotment down the road and I didn’t fancy the idea of luggng two full 120 compost bins down the road so the only option was to empty the bins all over my ex veg-plot.

Once all the muck-raking was finished, I rescued our Rhody bush from its old pot and re-planted it in the corner of the garden, right in among all that lovely compost. You should smell it, it’s smashingly rich. All nice and crumbly and slightly moist, perfect.

Of course I get all the smelly jobs but T certainly does work hard in the garden too:

Yup! We’ve finally got round to painting our fences! Bloody knackering though. Still, ’twas glorious weather for it. The panels have come up very well: currently they’re all a bit Browned Off but once the lawn comes up they should look just fine.

And yes, the shed and trellis frame got a good painting too, but there was one thing I just had to do first…

‹Will get Aunt Polly to help next time!›

Amongst all the weeds that fair got The Wife’s dander up today were some lovely bits and bobs ready for plucking out of the ground.

Cor, delish! These garlic bulbs came from a manky old thing that had started sprouting in the fridge at the start of the year so I divvied it out, planted the dooberries and waited. *snif sniff* Ahhhh! Delightful! No smell on earth like proper FRESH Garlic!

This is the last of the Rhubarb - unforced, specially for Tammy. The crowns will be going down the allotment in the autumn.

This is the Globe Artichoke kindly donated by JG and Ned - Jan, you were right - it DID explode and go everywhere! Have been cleaning off the black-fly today. Like the Rhubarb, think we may risk transplanting to the lotty.

More fruit from the bramble given to us by Ken (Tammy’s grandad). Tayberries taste so sweet compared to Raspberries. Yum! Hopefully the brambles will spead a load more over the next year.

Et finalement, the free Lily we get every year! Didn’t think it’d make it, considering the mess made of it by Lily-bugs, but it triumphed in the end.

All told a satisfying day, including shovelling up tonnes of those stupid purple slate chips and dumping them along the alleyway behind our garden so we can lawn the entire plot in the Autumn. Yes, it’s going to be grass everywhere except for our fruit bushes along the fence. Nice!

‹Notes with distase that Germany are through to the semi-finals›