With 40°C predicted for today it feels like summer is well and truly here, a full month early.
My garden is buzzing with bugs, beetles, wasps and bees which can only be a good thing. I have worked hard on incorporating flowers into the vegetable patch to keep our bug friends happy and add some colour. Randomly scattered sunflowers are not far away from flowering.
Cosmos flowers always make me smile.
Coriander is another favourite and it grows here almost all year round. The delicate flowers are a bonus and at the end of the cycle I find collecting the seed quite therapeutic.
These tall, slender Alliums look like mini sculptures as they reach for the sky. I cannot remember what variety they are so when they finally open their buds it will be a surprise.
It certainly feels like summer with these vibrant zucchini flowers quietly opening underneath the green leaves of the variety Long Florence. According to the Diggers Club this particular variety has some of the largest flowers. The ants and bugs are enjoying these too and that makes me happy.
Does it feel like summer where you are?
What are you observing in the garden?
Wishing you a restful Sunday friends x
Anne
40C already! Goodness.
It looks as though everything is thriving in your garden. I love flowers incorporated into veg gardens – for diversity and it just looks pretty too.
We're in autumn so the garden is slowly shutting down – still cutting coriander and parsley, ignoring marrows and lifting the last of the carrots and beetroot with artichokes and leeks in full production. I spent ages yesterday removing caterpillars from the brussels sprouts but as they've eaten the leaves, there's little left.
Enjoy your sunshine.
Jane S
Thanks Anne…diversity is the word I was looking for! Happy autumn gardening x
Anonymous
40 C Oh dear 🙁 I live in Poland. Here is a colorful autumn. It's cold and rainy. The temperature today is plus 13 degrees centigrade. Regards 🙂 ~Ewa
Jane S
Amazing, thank you for calling in all the way from Poland 🙂
Lizzy (Good Things)
Wow Jane, 40 degrees already! That is incredible! Your garden is thriving at present, though, which is good to see… sending you some rain thoughts! Beautiful photos! Have a lovely week.
Jane S
Thank you Lizzy, always great to hear from you!
Melanie Y
Wow, things are really happening in your garden. My balcony garden has been given the boot – though some mint & sage remains as they came back to life *just* as they were about to get tossed. Much easier looking after two plants rather than 50 out on the balcony.
Jane S
Your balcony was so amazing Mel, I really admired your determination with it. Mint and sage both smell so lovely, has your sage flowered? The flowers are so pretty.
e / dig in hobart
i also say 'wow' to 40 degrees already and to your pretty garden. i too love the simplicity of cosmos flrowers; the whites are my favourite.
we are having a typical tassie spring here – back to forecasts of snow and hail – so no, not feeling like summer just yet!
Jane S
40 degrees, snow and hail…sometimes it is hard to believe we live in the same country isn't it? Thanks e
Chantille Fleur
The weather has been very strange here. 2 weeks ago it felt like January weather – we even had a little thunder storm. Then after that it felt more like the end of winter – the sun was warm but it was very windy making it quite cool and very cold at night! But the last few days the wind has died off, the sun has gotten very strong and it's begun to feel like warm (almost hot) spring again.
We've been enjoying zucchinis too, one we missed and found it when it was a little too big, but not too big to eat, so we harvested it and ate it baked and stuffed with ham and other delicious things, a bit like a baked potato. It was divine!
Hope you had a good weekend,
Sarah x
Jane S
Your stuffed zucchini sounds delicious Sarah…spring/summer vegetables are great aren't they?
almostitalian
Lovely garden goodies. I admired your shade house in the background of the first photo- something that we may need to make this year in preparation for the season of the forties. Yours has started early!
Jane S
Thank you Francesca, my very handy husband made two of these shade structures last summer. Our garden wouldn't survive summer without them!
Lizzie @ Strayed from the Table
It has warmed up rather promptly this past week hasn't it. All my onions & garlic have gone to flower the bees are humming in the weeds while pollinating all my new season veggies. I love the garden at this time of year. Hope it doesn't get too hot too quick.
Jane S
Thanks Lizzie…happy gardening to you.
cityhippyfarmgirl
Oh Jane, how can it be 40C already? Ohhh that's just damn hot. Australian summers can be brutal can't they.
Jane S
Thanks Brydie…brutal is a great way to describe our summer.
tea with hazel
oh jane..i admire your tenacity to grow a vegetable garden in such a hostile climate..but it must be a lovely little oasis for you..and it certainly looks beautiful and so healthy..x
Jane S
Thanks Jane, tenacity or madness…I am not sure sometimes?! It is an oasis, I think that is what keeps me going. Have a lovely weekend x
Phil Pogson
Gee, just discovered this blog site…..really fabulous. lots of great back reading to indulge in!
Jane S
Thanks Phil.
gail
Hello Jane, I've just spent avery lovely couple of hours going right back to the beginning of your blog. I have found it so interesting, especially as we are retired sheep farmers now living on the South Coast, NSW. I've enjoyed copying some of your recipes which I'm eager to try and you've inspired me to try my hand at sour dough bread again. I always seemed to have a stodgy base to mine and I must confess I gave it up but now will try again. Looking forward to more posts.
Blessings Gail
Jane S
Thank you Gail, lovely of you to call in! Happy baking to you 🙂
M Mulberry
Beautiful Jane! You are so lucky to have all that coriander growing. I've never had that much success with growing it – but its health benefits are so good. I only recently discovered it clears heavy metal toxins from the body!!
Jane S
Thank you Mrs M, I am amazed how much I use coriander when I have it in the garden!
Jo / The Desert Echo
I was just about to make the same comment about my struggles with coriander growing! It is forever bolting to seed, perhaps I should just let it and it will come up on its own when it chooses.
Love the photos Jane, the garlic is particularly appealing!