What's going on, June 2020

Snap peas, Jun 2020

I took the above photo at the beginning of the month and the peas are about twice as tall now and covered with fat pods.  They're sugar snap peas and so sweet and crispy.  We like them raw in a salad or just very lightly cooked with dinner.

The whole garden has grown about twice as much, actually.  The allotment, not so much;  maybe the potatoes.  The pumpkins and squashes are just thinking about growing now, and the onions (not many) and leeks (same) too--but all still puny.  There are a lot of poppies here at home amongst the vegetables, and I've been gradually pulling them up and laying them down as mulch--it's kind of hard to find the veg through all those pretty flowers.

Like last year, my hayfever has been bad this month.  Hopefully the grass will finish flowering within a few weeks and I can go back to enjoying the outdoors.   The son and husband are still doing some of the work thankfully, though I've got much more stamina than I did when the daughter was born, back in March.  I try to get what I can done in the evenings after the husband is home from work, or at the weekends;  it's easier to get garden stuff done without a three month old baby in tow.

We've gone from a dry hot May to an on again, off again June.  It was hot last week but has been cool and rainy for a few days now.  Our lawn is green and growing again (it was brown and overgrazed) and the ducks and chickens are enjoying it.  Seven of our eleven chickens are at the allotment and the remaining four have been allowed a good amount of free range--they're the oldest and fattest hens so I'm not too worried about them breaking into the vegetable patch (they probably won't find the vegetables hidden in the poppies anyway);  all the jumpers, fliers and escapologists are enclosed in 2 m of wire at the allotment.