Urban garden

Stepping out into the garden in the early morning is sheer joy these days. The combination of sunshine, warm and heavy rain has left the greens lush and the seedlings flourishing.

It makes me happy, in a simple way.

This year, the raised beds so far play host to:

• Strawberries - these tend to go straight in my mouth and never make it to anything more sophisticated like fruit salad or jam
• Sugar snap peas - just think of the lovely crisp bite of a straight-from-the-vine bright green bean...
• Spinach - seems to grow like a weed, we are double sowing for a longer harvest
• Rocket, lambs lettuce, corn lettuce - to save on supermarket bagged salad, yuck
• Beetroot - recipes welcome, please, as I am not a fan but The Boy is
• Chives, parsely and mint - the mint is taking over, quick, better make some Pimms or some fresh mint tea

And, germinating nicely in the shed, are:

• Coriander and basil - it's great to have a proper shed for the more tender herbs
• San Marzano and Costoluto Fiorentino tomatoes - looking very promising, they are onto their first real leavs and are almost ready to upgrade to bigger pots
• Gardener's Delight tomatoes - worryingly, nothing showing yet...
• Runner beans
• Butternut squash - again, not a whisper of life, so fingers crossed.

This morning, I also listened really hard to the early everything-waking-up noises. I experimented wth sound recording on the iPhone, so you can listen too. (Audio file is MP4 on GoogleDocs and can be listened to in iTunes - if anyone knows a better way, please say, as this method is very roundabout!)

You can hear:

• The A12
• The Stansted flightpath
• Birds singing - I wish I could recognise what they are from their song, I only know I have seen blackbirds, wood pigeons, starlings, a robin and yellowtits
• Birds taking flight
• A neighbour's baby

Not bad for urban London at 9am on a Saturday!

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