A quick walk...

...around the garden before the heat hits.

Let's start at the balcony. This succulent tray is looking very pretty indeed. All of the plants come from The Neighbour Gnomes.

The bean bed is starting to look good. 2/3 of the beans have germinated. They are "Stuttgart" beans.
They are in a pretty protected spot. So I'm hoping they won't get burnt by the sun during this heat.

For years we have been trying to grow poppies. Strangely enough, never successfully. Everybody around us was ripping them out like weeds as they were self-seeding madly. Finally, this year, we have a ripper of a poppy!

Isn't that just the most cheerful sight? I love sunflowers. However, come spring I run out of steam with my sowing and sunflowers are put on the backburner. This one is a volunteer - it popped up from the horse manure. I did manage to sow some in late spring but they are spindly little things. Soooo glad this popped up all by itself. :)

The hydrangeas are hanging in there and still looking good. But the heat is taking its toll. The flower heads are slowly getting burnt.
The water chestnuts are growing nicely. This is the first time I am growing them, so I have no idea what to expect. I'll just have to wait and see.

A glimpse of some of the netted apple trees. They are bearing a lot of fruit and we are hoping we'll be harvesting a good amount later in the season.

The basil bar is finally looking good. It was struggling a bit with the extreme weather we experienced in spring.

The zucchinis in the zucchini bed have grown heaps since I last posted a picture here. The plants are setting fruit and we are hoping to eat some in a week or two.
The carrot bed is lush and green. We are harvesting "Purple Dragon" carrots every day to munch on. The yellow flowering plant in the foreground is "Black Salsify" that I let go to seed.

The tomatoes "Rouge de Marmande" are starting to blush. A few more weeks and we should be eating big, juicy tomatoes. We are already harvesting the occasional little yellow Ida Gold tomatoes, but it's just not the same.

This brings us to the end of the walk. Tiger Lilly is flowering and looks stunning!

Hope you enjoyed the walk. Time to call it quits - it's getting very, very hot.