My early summer garden

My gardening this summer has been delayed. We are planning an extension project at some point this year, and I wasn't sure how much of our garden I would be able to easily access. But we won't be starting until later in the year, so a few weeks ago I planted out seeds for the two things that I'm always successful at growing - tomatoes and sunflowers.

One part of my garden that gets more beautiful every year is my lavender bush. When it was planted a few years ago the young plant was confused with a rosemary bush, and so it ended up in my vegetable patch instead of a pot (the rosemary bush that was put in the pot has sadly long since died). This means that it has the space to grow and grow, and it certainly has. I do cut it back every year but I don't over prune as I don't want to kill it!

It's not quite at peak flowering yet but there isn't long to go. The bees love it!

Last week I planted out my tomato and sunflower seedlings into the vegetable patch. Hopefully it won't get any colder, and although they are small I think that they are hardy enough to survive outside. Due to the late start they aren't as impressive as they usually are at this time of year, but I'm hoping that there will be plenty of time for them to pick up and get going.

I've also done the first cut of our large hedge at the front of the house. It takes so long - all the clearing up afterwards! Over the years both me and my husband have sliced through the cord on different electric trimmers, so recently I've been hacking at it using a low powered battery trimmer which means I've had to cut in stages and then recharge. It was a struggle, so we've treated ourselves to a new corded electrical strimmer. It's already had a very narrow escape but fortunately the blades only slightly damaged the plastic cord coating and so it's still fine to use - I hope that it can make it through this year at least!

Now I'm looking at my borders and they are very bare so I think I'll be doing a trip to the garden centre to pick up some bedding plants to try and add a bit more colour.

It's been a slow start, but hopefully this week's sunshine is here to stay and we'll be able to enjoy the garden this summer!