Make it Monday - How does your garden grow?

Remember these vegetable boxes that my oldest boy helped me build at Easter time? (I wrote about them in this post here.)

Well, although it took me a while after I wrote that post before I actually got the chance to get anything planted in them, they are coming along quite nicely now.

I popped out in between our heavy rain showers to get these photos of them tonight.

In the first box I have potatoes, which should be ready for eating in a few more weeks.

In my middle box there is some cabbage and swiss chard. The leaves from the potato box are spilling over on one side and the courgette (zucchini) plant is pushing it's way over from the other side! There is also a rouge sunflower appeared at the back of this box! I have sunflowers growing in other parts of the garden so I can only assume a bird stole a seed and it ended up in here! 

My courgette plant is doing well, with quite a few lovely fat, green courgettes on it. I actually have my sister in law to thank for this plant as she planted a few extra seeds in case they didn't all work. They did, and so she gave me one of them.

There are more tatties in the box with the courgettes.

As well as the veg growing in the boxes, I have a few other bits and pieces. I  have some more potatoes growing in a couple of bags.

I'm particularly pleased with these lovely shiny pots of basil I have on our patio. I grew these from seed and they took ages to get going but now they look so healthy. I love fresh basil and the smell from the pots is divine too!

Also on the patio is a pot of yellow tomatoes.

And I always like to have a few pots of cut and come again lettuce and rocket on the patio too.

August has been much wetter than July was, but still nothing to complain about by our Scottish summer standards. Last night, though, was decidedly cooler here and quite windy. The wind has finished off my lilies for this summer!

Last night I thought the air was smelling a touch autumnal, although I hope that's not the end of our summer quite yet.

I'm not the only person who thinks that the seasons smell differently, am I?

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Tomatoes and tunnels

This summer has, even by Scottish standards, been a little disappointing in terms of the weather. June was glorious, hot and sunny for most of the month, with hardly a drop of rain. Then came July. It was, well, hmm, it was OK, I suppose. The boys were able to play outside a lot but it just wasn't really summer weather. Just mediocre, not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too sunny.

I'm not sharing this to give everyone a run-down of our weather but to explain my excitement when I saw this last week:

My tomatoes are growing outside, not in a greenhouse, so I had begun to think that maybe the summer hadn't been warm enough for them to turn red. There are loads of green fruits and so I was thinking I might be making a big batch of Green Tomato Chutney and then I saw these little delights! And delightful they are too. Lovely and sweet. My beloved and I had a late dinner together once the boys were in bed on Friday, and to finish off my husband had a cheeseboard with some of these freshly picked tomatoes. He was suitably impressed, though perhaps not quite as excited as I was!

I also tested a few of our potatoes from the planter. (The ones in the ground won't be ready for a couple more weeks.)

Yum, they were delicious!

In previous years I have grown pots of salads, herbs and strawberries but this is my first attempt at bigger veg. I'm hoping there will be plenty more veg photos to share in the coming weeks.

Hubby took the day off work today, to finish off the painting in the hall. We had been planning to paint the hall and living room since January! Just took a while to get round to it. He also picked up some boxes so we can de-clutter a little before the house goes on the market.

When he came in with the boxes he set them up like a tunnel for little man to play in. What a fun time he had crawling through the tunnels to his funny daddy! I took this little clip below to share with you all. He has such a funny little crawl!

Gaelic words for the day:

buntàta (bun-TAA-ta) - potato

tomàto (to-MAA-toe) - tomato

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