Garden update (2)

So last time around it took a while for a 'garden update'  to appear, but this time I'm going to keep all of you posted. Because a lot has been happening in our garden, much of it good, some of it less good.

One of the not-so-happy things is the fact that a looot of slugs have chosen to call our garden home. And they have an appetite. Strangely enough, they're also eating the leafs on the potato, which I thought would make them sick but somehow only seems to make them bigger slugs. Otherwise, they love eating fresh strawberries, especially during the night when they're just doing their final ripening before we take them off. And also young courgette and pumpkin plants, with their tiny leafs just coming out, are wonderful food.
The good thing is that we did have strawberries, and several other edible things actually growing. The only thing that failed massively were the carrots, of which exactly 3 showed some fizzy leaf, which then disappeared after a while (whether the slugs were involved, we don't know, it may be that they're just unhappy growing on our clay soil). But we've had a loooot of strawberries, which in true strawberry fashion were ripe during Wimbledon, so it's been a week since we had the last ones. Otherwise, we've had some broccoli, and the leeks are really starting to become proper leeks. We've eaten some already and are going to have to eat the rest of them soon before they start flowering and become inedible.


Our apple tree also did surprisingly well, its little branches laden with apples. Every rain storm or gust of wind I'm afraid the weight of the apples will break the branches, but so far it's holding up pretty good. Then there are the aforementioned potatoes, and we've gotten a new batch of courgette and pumpkin plants for a do-over. We're also having a pepper plant (one small pepper already growing away) and an aubergine plant, which doesn't really seem to be doing a lot. And both of our berry plants are still completely without leafs, but we do have a lot of butterflies around from the caterpillars that ate all those leafs, so I guess it's been good for something.
In the non-veg area our thyme plant has been eaten twice, we just put in the second reserve in the hope that this one will survive. Most of our other plants are doing really well, especially the butterfly-bush, which is attracting a lot of bees, butterflies, and other nectar-loving insects. Sadly, it's also attracting our little neighbour girl, who likes to pull off the flowers because they smell so nice. But all in all the garden is doing a lot better than I expected, given the lack of sun, abundance of rain, and lack of attention from us. We'll see if the potatoes, peppers, apples, courgettes, pumpkins and aubergines turn out to be any good later in the year. For now, it's most used to enjoy the wonderful weather we've been having.

PS: I was going to add some photos, but my computer is being especially difficult tonight, so pics still to come.