Welcome to May! Our spread of bluebells is growing…along with the occasional “whitebell” and “mauvebell”

I love our house. Especially gratifying to see the grassy area (lawn is pushing it) I’ve created through a few hours of pretty serious mowing in the past 12 months

Standing in pretty much the same spot, but looking to the right of the house from the previous photo, this is “the Triangle” – where we’ve planted the last of the shrubby trees we put in this year in the hope of creating an additional wind break from the prevailing wind. Still not quite sure what we’ll do down-wind of said windbreak, but it’ll be a few years til its fully effective so we’ve got a while to figure it out

Up by the greenhouse, looking down with the house behind. Our “fence” composters are doing really well and suit our needs perfectly: easy to construct, easy to move, easy to fill!

Tulips in the foreground (where there used to be a rhodie bush which has now been moved so we have an uninterrupted view to the sea from the Armoury window) and the beautifully-weeded-by-Jeremy-and-Clare bed with the ceanothus in the background

Again next to the greenhouse, this time looking down towards the Triangle

Earlier in the year I had the name for this one – now it’s escaped me again. Answers on a proverbial postcard (comments will do!) appreciated. We had a couple hiding in the grass down by the trampoline and I had to be very careful while mowing not to take ’em out with the whizzing blades

Check those rounds of wood – all moved by Jeremy and Clare! Now we just need to split them (or get more WWOOFers in the split them…)

Last year I bought a bunch of perennial flowers – and they have been putting on a lovely show (if somewhat random courtesy of the haphazard planting) throughout the summer

You’ll notice there’s not much of a focus on the house – and that does reflect our attention! Unfortunately we didn’t manage to clear our the beech masts and leaves from the main valley gutter which caused some leakage through into the hallway. Not too much damage done – but fascinating to see the salt coming out of the tiles

Potatoes planted up (with a top mulch of old flour sacks – hurrah for Chris working in a bakery) and happily growing

The herb bed planted up, with the potted fruit bushes in the background

See that sparse looking ground between the chard on the left and the cardboard on the right? In there are some very tiny leek seedlings – about 50 of which survived to be planted on (into the area to the left which here has a cardboard mulch on)

Did pretty well with the kale seedlings – plenty to give away to friends!

The greenhouse filled with happy squash and courgette plants (after a couple of false starts) plus parsley, coriander and tomatoes

The tomato seedlings shortly before going into their final spaces for the year

This may seem insignificant, but these few basil plants made it despite being very old seed. Failed to weed out the nettle before taking the photo, tho…attention to detail lacking, somewhat

One of my favourite views from my office window – both rhodies in full flower, with the subtly different shades of leaf of the beech and the horse chestnut in the background

Not our house, but close: Carrick beach is fabulous for creating – and walking – a simple labyrinth

And finally – not Katrine Bank at all! I planted these irises outside the NH offices in Morecambe and just love them coming back every year – hurray for irises!