It's a jungle out there

We got back from a week’s holiday with my folks and my brother’s family to discover the garden had finally exploded into life. The damp and gloom of this summer had sent it into a kind of horticultural sulk and not even the weeds were up to very much.  A different story when we stepped out of the car expecting to return to our fairly ordinary suburban garden and instead stumbled upon the Day of the Triffids.

The vegetable patch has gone crazy. After months of nothing but extremely bitter rocket, which even the slugs give a wide berth, we suddenly have a tree laden with apples, runner beans, strawberries and best of all stripy courgettes topped with yellow flowers. 

 

The courgette plant is a monster. It is taller than the kids and looks like something out of the Jurrassic period.

 

This is how the vegetable patch looked back in June. Not up to much.

The children were pretty keen to help make the vegetable markers, particularly when they realised eating ice lollies was involved.

Are we planting ice creams?

I’m not sure what became of the carrots. Probably the slugs got in there first. The sweet peas never put in an appearance either.

 Here it is in July.

And here it is in its current glory. Who knew rocket flowers were so pretty!

Of course the ivy and brambles have also gone completely nuts. I spent a pretty therapeutic afternoon tearing great handfuls of spaghetti-like roots out of the earth and hacking down brambles. Then I collected some apples and went in to make apple pie with apples from the garden. 

 

Hurray for summer - it's finally here and September's only a week away!