A modest harvest

I've been asked to document this weekend's harvest. In part because getting anything out of the vegetable garden at all with the weather this year feels like a total result. But mostly to out-smug some close relations of my co-gardener. She has a fiercely competitive streak when it comes to growing vegetables, and photographic proof of produce is the best way to show her clear superiority in the green fingers department.

It made for a delicious salad and a small but very tasty pudding.

There's a fox in the garden, what am I gonna do...

Ideally sung to the tune 'There's a rat in my kitchen what am I gonna to do'...

By UB40.

You know the one:

It's on YouTube and everything

I can't quite work out if this is the equivalent of posting lots of pictures of my own cats. But this guy was very cute. I've restricted myself to three pictures only. I took about 30. 

I'm not proud.

Decking - better in black

Black decking... for a similar look just burn the existing decking.

BIG CHANGES here in the clay garden. Instead of my usual tinkering with plantings I've pulled my finger out and got round to some structural things we've been meaning to do for a while. More to come in a later post. For the moment though here's the first major change. Our decking has been a standard brown ever since we've been here. But no more. We decided to paint it a dramatic black. I say we - the other gardener was the painter (and colour chooser I might add). I just moved the pots.

It's a bold look. I wasn't totally convinced to begin with, but I'm starting to like it. It sets off green foliage nicely with the pots back on it and makes the garden look a bit more designed and thought about. Although strangely, looking at these photos I've started to miss the shabby peeling brown - felt friendly for some reason. Before and after pics below. 

Before - with all the plant pots on it.

More before - in case you didn't know what decking looked like up close

And after - austere, but better once the pots are back on it.