Our very own crop

I hadn't been to blip in the garden for sometime, so early this evening I wandered around looking for something special. I took pictures of all the flowers around the back door that are still blooming well after many months, including the many morning glory flowers which still volunteer every day. The dark red sweet peas are also looking beautiful clinging to the equally rampant climbing french beans which adorn the trellis and give us enough beans every day for two people. They have been the best crop of french beans that I have ever grown.

Down on the patio I am equally pleased with the lemon grass plants that I have grown from shop bought culinary shoots and I have another bunch which have produced roots to plant up for another crop. They are really pretty shapes as well as offering the hope of delicious asian flavours in a few months time when they are big enough to pick without killing the whole plant. The squash plants are still thriving but I can tell they will only produce a few more fruits so I am going to let a few of them grow to be very big just for the pleasure of seeing them. The courgettes show no signs of slowing down and they are ahead of us now. I need to find some new recipes as Helena isn't that keen and might put her foot down about eating too many more.

But my blip has to be our grapes which are nearing ripeness. I planted this vine about ten years ago and it has been very successful. In fact it got out of hand in the last two years and grew rather wildly across the other marauding climbers such as two different clematis montana, the honeysuckles and the huge brambles suckers which have invaded us over the six foot fence from the wild garden next door. We cleared a large section of the garden recently, where the vine had been thriving but I had to cut a lot of it away, whilst lopping tree branches over which it was climbing. So I'm very pleased to find the grapes looking happy.

They are very good to eat once ripe, although I don't often eat them. When I bought the plant they were also advertised as being suitable for wine making, although that isn't likely with me, much as I love drinking wine. It is the birds that I like to feed and in particular the blackbirds really like them as they build themselves up for winter. I will have a few myself though just to appreciate them in person and thank them for being such fine specimens.