Sunday 27 August 2017

GLOBAL WHATTING? SLIMEY STUFF RULES


To start with - a word of warning - beside the black currant bushes is growing a pretty umbellifer looking much like parsley or coriander. But it is not!!! It does not smell of a herb. It is a stunted plant of Hemlock Water Dropwort.
And poisonous.

Still alive I move on - this is an infra red video taken in the early morning of what I think is a young roe deer - and today I watched a mouse creep into the shed under the door. On closer inspection a sack in which I keep straw has been chewed and is clearly a nest site.



Everywhere is sodden so a peremptory mow and then a clip of the beech hedge. And now a hover mow of the big banking and a clean out of the pond - weed and flowering rush which has got out of control. Roses are flowering again but not the Rosa mundi which only does once. It is very easy to strike cuttings from this rose but where am I going to put the new plants.


We have eaten our first Victoria plums - well R scoffed most of them - such a treat.

Flowers - perhaps what a garden can be about (and veg and fruit too) so here are some flowers - 
poppy,





Rose Emma Hamilton,

and two of the blooms on the Eucryphia tree - despite it looking a bit sickly it has flowered abundantly.

The buddleias are going over and should be dead headed so we can get more butterflies like these - small tortoiseshell.




  
and red admiral.

We have had an attack of the dreaded molluscs in the veg beds - snails and slugs - whilst we were away with the persistently wet weather. Carrots, beetroot and chard leaves chewed but rescued three carrots to go with tonight's Waberthwaite sausages.

The broad beans have set sporadically yet the sweet peas are flowering - better than last year's disaster.
There are wasps on the plums, and rot, and even snails on those on the ground where the broken branch as bowed so low it touches the grass.
There is no doubt, up here it has been a cool wet summer and all we can do is pray for a good September. 
I have had to put wooden barriers across some of the soggiest paths having fallen flat yesterday on the mud. The far garden in the wood is like a quagmire.
So much for global w..

It makes the labour all worthwhile when guests say how good the garden looks, fail to see the weeds and chaos. Had a big dose of that yesterday.

And yes we have "The return of the cyanobacteria" The Nostoc Commune is back on the main path through the garden - ?not an animal, not a fungus, not a plant! More soon . . .

1 comment:

  1. Not a good summer as you remark.Gardening has been a hit-and-miss for us. A neighbour surprised me by saying that she likes to look at our garden because there is always something interesting "Coming up." I really don`t think she was referring to the conglomeration of weeds and so it was pleasing.

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