WIN SOME, LOSE SOME, VANDELLA WEATHER

Last week topped 30C, the veg are cooked before we pick them.

So we had caught a jay and a blackbird in the rat trap - now I found a grey squirrel squashed into the narrow space. Obviously the rats are too clever.

Rhubarb good, asparagus good, we have apples and damsons but few plums and greengages, the blackbirds have eaten ALL the red currants and the gooseberries are a disaster with the sawfly and mildew, black currants look hopefull as do the raspberries. 

Have done the Popeye bit (though some would look at me and think of Bluto)(or Wimpey) and the spinach despite some bolting is delicious. 

R wanted some cuttings of the Hydrangea Annabelle so it's done.

One more pic of the rambling rector as they are so stunning. Oh! And the sun keeps shining (Vandella Weather). 29C is hot for us.

Now to move on - have put together the netting protection for the veg R gave me for my birthday and it is now in place. On the left are the rather cultural poles waiting for the sweet peas to grow. All this within the rabbit proof fencing.

Oh! and the cuttings went kaput very quickly in the heat.

This is the royal fern by the stream, not that there is any water in it. 
And on the left is a surprise wild flower in the lawn - lesser spearwort - shows how wet the earlier part of the year was.

Veg wise the potatoes look good, as do these courgette plants, helped by water water water. Hooray for a borehole. I have been busy with the blackcurrants - picking faster than the blackbirds eat them is the aim.

On the left is the dreaded alchemilla, self seeder supreme - but R loves them so . . .  (A poem later)
On the right a blue delphinium, that survived the slugs, blasting the garden with colour.
Below the imprint of a pigeon wing left on the garden door window after a collision.

OK Poem now -

ALCHEMILLA

i

Copan an druichd in the Highlands - a dew cup; 

an Irish cure for elf-shotten animals. In France -

herbe á la vache, an aphrodisiac for cows.

Gerard says they keepeth down a maiden paps

and when they be too great and flaggie,

it make them lesser, harder - Oh, and it is good on wounds.

Culpepper advised that to conceive,

women should sit in a bath of its green decoction.

ii

But enough of all this. Its flowers are yellow, 

or green, or both, minute and magical 

and fructiferous. There are a thousand stars 

in every cluster. Each leaf is a dew-laden chalice

and at night they draw together like a fist. 

Then, of a morning, after a shower, 

each palm reveals a pearl that shines in early sun,

a small gem of mystery, of alchemy.

iii

And the garden of your love is here again

and the sun shines; the alchemillas sparkle in the sun.

There are tears in every hand in every palm;

and through a thought pipette you draw a jewel from a leaf

and sorrow turns to hope. My tears shine, 

fallen from tomorrow's smile, and the garden of your love 

is beautiful, even though it rains,

for it rains for you, the jewel of the dew.

Pollution does produce some stunning dusk colours like this -

And the red variegated alstroemerias are in fine fettle.

The garden is blessed with fragrance as the lilium regale are coming out and the philadelphus has never been so good.

Finally I got some Maxicrop seaweed concentrate as I heard that Bodnant Garden in North Wales uses it - and then Monty Don recommended it on his tv programme - we have used it and will see.

No rain forecast for ages, and again - thank DD for our borehole. (Cumbrian Water Services).

Off to read John Lewis-Stemple's The Wood.

(Vandella weather - Heat Wave)(Scottie will get this one.)