Every time I see my Grandad he asks what I am growing and how the garden is so I thought I would put up some pictures here for him to see what is going on. (I expect a couple of other nosy parkers might like to have a look too!)

I’ve managed not to kill the sweet peas you gave me in the autumn despite ignoring them all winter in the greenhouse, they are just starting to flower and I’ve got a little bunch of them in a rather nice jug in my kitchen (the photo of it is not in my kitchen but that is where they are now).

I found some seeds the other day which I had been saving to plant at about half past May and when I found them again I realised most of them said you should plant them in April, so I threw them all in and they are sprouting already to make up for being late.

There are some purple dwarf beans (Small chose those), some runners that I saved from last year, some red cabbages and multicoloured courgettes hiding at the back, some tomatoes that need to go into the grow bags, some bonsai tomatoes that desperately need to go in bigger pots and to a new home (does anybody want some small tomato plants?) and some miscellaneous flowers that I can’t remember what they are now (Small chose those as well). There’s some broccoli off to the side where you can’t see it that is going outside tomorrow and some morning glories and sunflowers lurking in the corner next to the lemon tree (also invisible) which produced two lemons this year.

This is the organised bit of the garden which has garlic, red and white onions, Duke of Yorks (or should that be Dukes of York?), Charlottes, some miserable slug eaten beetroot, far too many parsnips and some carrots (hopefully if they start growing sometime soon).

This is the jungle, the wisteria is holding up the back wall, there is a damson (looking a little swamped) and some lupins and foxgloves somewhere in there which I put in last year and seem to have survived, the rest is mostly aquilegias which I have never planted any of (oh, no, wait I lie, I planted some yellow ones over the other side but not any of these ones) in shades of bluey-purple, purpley-purple, pinky-purple, purpley-pink, pale pink and white. They grow everywhere and I love them because of the colours – every now and then they jumble themselves up for no reason and at the moment there is a very dark purple one, almost black like an aubergine, which has pale yellow edges on the bell and then there is one white one which is so beautiful it shouldn’t be called white – if you look a bit closer it is extremely pale yellow, the next time it looks just pink, the next time the palest blue- it is almost pearlescent, the colour of princesses’ wedding dresses in fairy tales or maybe fairies’ pyjamas. And they just grow there with no help.

This one’s not an aquilegia, I can’t remember what it is. It could be a geum that I planted last year.

This one is a ridiculous poppy that I don’t understand how it works. I mean how did all that stuff fit into that bud? Who has the job of folding up all the petals like butterflies’ wings crammed in a chrysalis?

Speaking of chrysalises, Kit (short for Christopher the Chrysalis but really that just sounds silly) is starting to look a bit brown so either he is going rotten or he is going to hatch soon…