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On Sunday night, as the rain lashed against the windows, I asked myself if it really was the end of Summer. I’m not so sure it is. I often get caught out like this. I assume the long hot days are behind us so I dig out my jeans and sweaters and then September brings some deliciously warm days with it and I end up sweating out in the garden in dark clothing. So this year I’m not entering the chilly time too early.

One thing that will be coming to an end no matter how much I wail and scream is the garden. The Paddock, which we started to plant so many months ago, has been a real success, seeing as it was a bit of an experiment. All I knew was that I had a vision for a space. That was the easy bit. All I had to do was to plan how to bring it to life.

You’ll remember that this was the plan, drawn out roughly, and not quite knowing how it would all turn out.

Here we were in May. Lots of green and blue but not much colour.

That all changed.

I decided to plant all of my Cosmos in one bed. I did that a lot with flowers this year. Partly to see how they grew and partly to create a really easy to manage cutting garden.

Here they were a couple of months later. An explosion of colour, so bright and cheery. I will definitely grow these again but I’ll spread them out along the borders. They need deadheading regularly but they produce in abundance and I love their cheery faces.

I also put Salvia in the same bed. Salvia is of course a magnet for bees and is now one of my favourite things to grow. Beautiful shades of Silver and Purple make this a real show-stopper but once again I think it is lost, in this quantity, in a raised bed. I’ll certainly grow it again as a border as it’s too magnificent not to.

If I have one tip for you when growing Salvia of this variety its to grow it in large quantities. That’s when it starts to look majestic.

Stocks are another flower that we had great success with this Summer. I got it right with these and they were planted in the border along the entrance to the Paddock. The syrupy smell hits you as you wandered in and the colours were delicious. I’ll most certainly be growing them again next year and I would heartily suggest that you do the same. They are fantastic!

They also look lovely when they are cut and placed in jam jars. Any impromptu supper would welcome Stocks as a guest and I miss them already. See you next year, guys!

Aha! Sweet Peas. Now these DID do well in the raised bed. They tend to get so very tangled that giving them support is an imperative. Otherwise they’ll grow in to a tangled bush and I don’t think they flower as well.

In just a few short weeks we went from a brown bed to this mass of hysterical colour. Way to go Sweet Peas!

And here’s my corn. I grew some corn last Summer but it didn’t do so well. This year I bought more plants and planted them in rows. There were enough of them to pollinate each other and before long they were looking……..

…er, really quite tall.

And I can say with my hand on my heart that they were really quite tasty too. Robert the Husband bought me one for supper the other evening as I lay on my backside and surfed the Internet – there are some wonderful websites out there that I am only just discovering, I can’t wait to tell you all about them – and it was unlike any corn I have ever eaten. Apart from the fact that it was so fresh it almost made a pass at me it also tasted so much sweeter than shop bought corn. Definitely worth the space it takes up in your garden.

Just thought I’d throw this in the mix. Look at this baby……..and check out the Bumble Bee.

Here is the Dahlia bed. They have featured in my garden posts a lot throughout the Summer as I’m so proud of them. You can tell when I’m proud of something as I’ll feature it a lot but I really am chuffed with these flowers as I’d never grown them until this year.

Here they were just getting started……..

…And this is how they are right now.

We had a horrid touch of Black Fly at the start of the Summer which also got my Broad Beans and Sweat Peas but we dealt with that with an organic spray. We also deadheaded when we had to and they just kept coming! I’m going to miss these guys also. This colour explosion has been on my garden landscape for weeks and weeks and I really do not want them to go.

DON’T SEND ME IN TO AUTUMN YET, I’M NOT READY!!!!!!

*hic*

*breathe*

*compose*

The past weekend can be summed up in this one picture.

Food, shopping and wine.

• Robert and I both ate food, you’ll be glad to know. In fact if you follow me on Twitter or are a member of my Facebook fan page (all the links are at the bottom of this post) you’ll know that we took the babies out to eat and had a lovely lunch on Saturday. “Have babies, will dine out” seems to be our current motto.
• I shopped. Nuff said. I felt like a different person having raided Top Shop and even though I am older than most of the other shoppers I don’t care. I will regain some semblance of my youth and if that’s the only way to do it then so be it!!!!! *breathe….again*
• And Robert drank wine.

There was some cooking done and by the end of Sunday evening the pans were worn out and slept haphazardly in the cupboard.

And there was also a whole pile of washing drying in front of the AGA…….

…and a whole pile more waiting to go in the machine. In fact this basket is still right there. Waiting to go in the machine. Oh, and there is another pile on the sofa in the kitchen waiting to go in. And another in my bathroom waiting to go in. And another on the floor on Robert’s side of the bed, waiting to go in. And I think there is some more on the floor in the dining room, you guessed it, waiting to go in. And let us not forget the HUGE pile waiting to be put away in the nursery.

Who would have thought that two babies this small could produce this much washing??? Perhaps one day they’ll stop puking and pooping on EV..ERRRRR…REEEE…THING

and we can go back to our neat and tidy one or two loads of washing a week.

But until that day arrives, on a Sunday evening in the month of August I shall be found flaked out, basking in the blue glow of the television with my favourite magazine by my side. I shall read it for about five and a half seconds and then I shall be asleep.

Gotta get some rest, I’ll be up to do another feed in a couple of hours!

I love you wherever you are and thank you so much for reading this.

Cherry xoxox

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Cherry Menlove

Related posts:

1. In the Night Garden, almost
2. Tomatoes – What My Garden is Currently Offering Me
3. A Sunny Garden Update
4. Creating A Container Garden
5. Garden Gallery, 4th June, 2010

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