Gardening sights

A task that needed to be done today was weeding the potato patch.  Frances is very good at weeding but sometimes the weeds send their A+ team and a bit of bloke theory needs to be applied.  Thus it was my turn and after two barrow loads of grass and various Cruciferous weeds had taken up a commanding position on our long-rot compost pile this is what the patch looked like.
Since 2 of the 3 rows of plants seemed to have lost all above ground material I decided to wield a fork in their general direction.  This generated quite a few spuds.

 A positive of gardening is that one can get a bit up close and personal with some elements of nature.  I was surprised to find a mole cricket (Gryllotalpa sp.) and  popped it in a bucket  for a photo-op.  This meant it didn't bite me!
 Casting an eye at the raspberries showed a grasshopper contemplating eating a leaf and  ....
 .. some mini-bees doing good in the matter of fertilisingraspberry flowers for the Autumn crop.
 Back at the house the dahlias along the drive have started to strut their stuff.
We have also - for the first time - scored a few hollyhock flowers.
I have no idea why we have so much trouble growing these plants.  Perhaps they like deeper soil, but we do add a lot of compost when planting stuff.

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