The last day of the month is the time for me to catch up with how the garden produce is coming along.

The weather, here in Perthshire this month, has been a real mixed bag. A few sunny days along with some pretty miserable and wet ones. We have had several blustery winds and a couple of much cooler nights. All that said, the garden is looking good.

I keep a sowing and planting diary from year to year, and take a few pictures of the garden each month in order to keep a progress record. Compared to previous times, most of my edibles are at about the same stage as usual, but the runner beans and potatoes seem to be a bit more advanced – fingers crossed, I may get an earlier harvest! The fruit trees are bearing much more fruit than ever before as they become more established in the garden – last year was a poor season with no apples on the miniature trees, only a handful of plums and a solitary pear. I have much higher hopes for this year’s harvest.

My favourite flower bed at this time of year is full of colour, fragrance and delicate petals. It is home to a combination of peonies, Welsh poppies, white and blue campanulas and foxgloves. Sadly the flowers often get windblown and damaged by heavy rain, but there has been nothing too destructive so far.

I have managed to capture a little of its beauty in the image below.

I adore peonies; their perfume is quite overwhelming – I only wish I could post the aroma via my blog. I inherited 4 varieties in this bed, they were very well established when I got here. I have no idea of their varieties, but these are my favourites. They have bloomed without fail for the 12 years I have had the garden; I hardly ever do anything by way of maintenance, except give them an occasional feed.

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Peony perfection. Image copyright: Kathryn Hawkins