… of the leaf cutter bee! Which is fabulous news as I was only moaning to K last night that we’ve not seen the leaf cutter bee at home for a couple of years at least, whereas we had a few of them for several years on the go before that.
Even the great Monty Don mentioned he had them in his garden last night and how thrilled he was about it – thus explaining my moan. Well, we still don’t have them at home (alas) but the great news is we have them on the allotment!
As you can see from the marvellous circular bites taken out of the rose leaves on the right of the picture above, they are busy making their homes somewhere nearby. They cause absolutely no damage to the plant and I think the patterns they make are very beautiful, so this is a wonderful addition to our plot!
However, not all visitors are good ones as it’s obvious that some evil creature is eating our poor cabbages:
Still, at least the cabbages – once we’ve removed the damaged parts – are edible, but I wasn’t anticipating on doing this much sharing with the wildlife …
However, the lettuces and yacons are surviving well:
In other news, I’m happy to say that the first of our asters are now in flower and the butterflies and bees are LOVING them:
In this perennial bed, we also have the dahlias arriving and a second showing of the roses, which is good news too:
Meanwhile, the sweet peas are still going strong:
And the sweet williams are looking happy too:
So, today, we have a harvest of one cabbage, one courgette, three beetroots, French climbing beans, sweet peas, sweet williams, asters, roses, gladioli, dahlias and a coreopsis:
Here are the vases at home:
Have a lovely weekend, everyone.
The Allotment Wife 