Pollen rich flowers in the potager

I’ve had a tricky time capturing the shots for today’s post.  Not helped by Artur insisting on leaping onto my lap anytime I leant down to get close to a bloom.

I have a lot of flowers dotted about the potager.  You just can’t see them very well from the overhead shots.

And nearly all of them are self-sown; there isn’t really time to sow a flower from seed at this early time of the year and expect it to flower in May.

So I rely on inaccurate weeding.  The cerinthe were planted a few years back and come back regularly all over the central path and on the top sides of the potager.  If you want a reliable bee magnet, these are great.

They aren’t actually great in a vase as they tend to nod.

I keep thinking they will be slayed by winter cold. But as we missed a cold winter this year they are up way earlier than last year.

The violas too just sail through winter now. I try and move them to the sides of all the beds – they self seed like mad. And should the move take me I can add them to salads.

I don’t do it often enough; which is crazy as they are perched right beside the lettuce in some of the beds.

The sweet peas likewise do what they want. I have given up sowing them. I get about half a dozen big plants persisting all year. The real challenge is to get them to behave and not take over entire beds.

I have a pocketful of twine just waiting to be put to use; the only tricky thing is I need a chestnut structure to corral one of the lustiest of my sweet peas.

If Nicolas can’t manage to come back for a day I’ll just stake them and let them flop a bit more tightly.

I can’t say the beds are groaning with produce yet; but I’m always surprised just how much room my annual poppies take up.

Boy they are thugs. I ‘edit’ them. Which is garden speak for yanking them out when they are in the wrong place. But I love the fresh zing of red in among the green.

I have no idea what these bright orange flowers are in the flower bed. Marigolds? Possibly.  I’ll need to pull out most of them when the dahlias fianlly come into growth.

Yes, there is a bit of action there. But boy it’s a long wait. Not helped by some of the foliage being eaten by slugs.  It’s the season where you have to hope the plants can grow faster than they can get muched.

And in the meantime I have colourful distractions.  And gladdies too.