BLOGGED OFF AND SCRUMPING

This new blogger is driving me nuts! This is the third time I have written this start, well not this bit but the next bit. 

The lawns are mown with the sit-on but the garden is rough terrain in places and if the grass is damp (or wet) the mower clogs up. I tried all sorts of things over the years including hosing it etc. Finally I have come to use a length of blue alkathene piping to prod out the clog. I got a bit vigorous yesterday and I have cracked some sort of plastic shield for the underside and it doesn't half rattle. Don't ever get a sit on that won't cut damp grass - useless in our climate.

Anyway the broccoli comes on ok and will be ready in February. There is chard in the same bed and in the distance parsley - R only likes the flat leaved version. Elsewhere the courgettes marrow on but the winter spinach only got to the autumn before going to seed.

I have just received three packets of wild flower seed, especially the yellow rattle, and will be turning some of the lower grass into a wildflower meadow (though knowing me it will be a mess of thistles and docks.

 

The rose on the shed just flowers and flowers - glorious and birds have sown sunflowers all over the place - not huge but they light up dark corners, as do the calendulas.

At the rear of the house by the retaining wall the helianthus lightens a dark autumn area and thrives. 

The first signs of autumn come Tuesday - dark, spitting and misty - dampening the grass.

R has me picking chard, spinach, courgettes, mint, parsley and chives - in  fact anything I can find. It is time to make "Stuff soup". Any old leftovers still edible will do, peas from the fridge, surplus cooked veg. When liquidised it takes on a nondescript brown colour, she eats it, I find the taste a bit too nondescript.

The bars are to shut at 10 pm for the virus - not something that worries us too much as R is often asleep in front of the tv by 9 and I hardly drink (alcohol) nowadays. 😴

I have been on the Sarah Raven website again - ordering sweet pea seeds for autumn sowing, white camassias and some tulips.

On a grey afternoon I clear the path at the back of the pond, flag iris getting out of hand, take the two lowest branches off the big eucalyptus, turn the old compost heap and finally light the bonfire whilst it is still dry(ish). I find an old bird nest in the undergrowth - though I have passed it many times I did not know it was there. Then to check the horse chestnut tree for conkers but there are none. R wanted some to deter clothes moths.

Wednesday and sunny during the early day, rained in the night. S the gardener is strimming the lower banking, the stream and long grass ready for preparation for the wild flower meadow. For me - the dentist and later a flu jab. A lot of grass taken off.

I have planted a gunnera in the boggy bit that trapped my mower. That should sort out any need to cut grass there as it will become enormous, and love the damp conditions.

And now a picture of compost for L and G after I dug it over.

Posted these on Facebook - where the plums and apples had fallen the local wildlife has moved in and gone scrumping -

Well that was fun, all we need now is an orca in the pond.

Thursday - raining, cold, dark, the an hour respite at 10am. Just when I think we have had enough wildlife I look up from the keyboard and there is a nuthatch on the paving outside the window.

And now, as if the new Blogger is not driving me scatty I find it no longer supports the Safari on my old iPad (and I cannot update it). Time to send them a bill?

IT IS AUTUMN, NOW SUMMER, NOW WINTER

 It is Sunday and an early post of the latest blog. It is dark, grey clouds scudding form the west, a stiff breeze blowing, rooks falling like black rags from the ash trees, one of which, the trees I mean, has lost its leaves already - ?dieback.
All in all a depressing morning and not one that fires me with any urge to go gardening.
Yesterday I dug up some of the excess aquilegias and dumped them under the winter flowering honeysuckle to survive, or not. They have taken over too much of the flowerbeds.

It is Monday and we have a short bout of warm weather, 21C. However the grass is slow to dry, so out with the smaller mower, set it on mulch and do the whole lot! The Victoria plums are ok but do not have the flavour of previous years, much fruit on the ground and not all ripe. The seat we bought years ago from IKEA has gone a bit rotten and unsafe. Perhaps I can jerry rig it?

It is Tuesday and 26C. I weeded the veg beds, well, some of them but then come in and sit in the extension out of the sun. R is struggling away at her blog using Squarespace. Blogger seems easier but I do not like the new version so tend to revert to the old one. Sometimes simpler is easier. Anyway the parsley is thriving we know who wears the boots here.

It is Wednesday and much cooler if sunny. I opened the garden box to find a wasp nest, now quiet.

The sun is shining but it is cooler. Lots of fruit like the Conference pears but also on the thornless hawthorn and the guelder rose, small beautifully coloured berries.

It must be Thursday, market day, shrimps from George, sunny again and JP came to get the trophy he won from the Photo Society. What can I say - after a guided garden tour where he admired everything from figwort and bogbean to a pair of Southern Hawker dragonflies which flew up to investigate him and revealed to R that he actually had read this blog - always welcome. He went home clutching not just the glass trophy but a plant pot of Bramley apples.

So my sweet peas, no matter how I grow them, plugs, seed, whatever they do not flower - but I will not give up. Next year try again.

It is at this point I go balder as the new version of Blogger is driving me to distraction and I am tearing my hair out. It will not do as I want and suddenly all my typing is in the middle of the page and . . . 😩😠 it will not let me preview the page now so I will stop and hope for better things tomorrow. 

Today is Friday and J and J have been for damsons and apples. I have picked the last of the not too ripe plums, a pound to freeze, the rest to cook. As I picked they cascaded onto the grass. Time to prune the tree coming up. 

Up the garden, for some strange reason, the red rhododendron is flowering, there is even blossom on the ponticum. 

Every morning this week I have watched rabbits on the top banking first thing in the morning. So I went in search of their burrow and found several attempts under the Rambling Rector but still not the main one. 

No rain - the mower in the shed is restless.

It is Saturday and last night in a fit of pique because the Victoria Plum had so many squishy fruit I pruned it heavily - I know should have been done midsummer and it will probably get silverleaf. 

So today we went to Abi and Tom's nursery at Halecat and I bought a Gunnera and some violas. Then to the studios and a chat with fiona Clucas before walking thew sculpture trail. Finally to Grange-over-Sands and the garden centre in the car park for R to get an Aeonium Schwartkopf. This time the cold weather will not get it.

And to conclude and answer the "Is autumn coming question?" here are the Euonymus and Virginia creeper.

SEPTEMBER IN THE RAIN

The leaves of brown come tumbling down - remember - well, you know -

So autumn is upon us, early but nevertheless the trees are turning, fruit is ripe. Have just picked 4 pounds of damsons and have hardly touched the crop. Would be picking plums also but raining again. The courgettes are threatening to be marrows. S the gardener has trimmed the beech hedge, cut back the lower Rambling Rector Rose and strimmed upper banking - and we have a rabbit hole! The house martins are gathering but have not yet gone, not quite. How such small birds fly thousands of miles to Africa and back amazes me. At least they are not restricted by any virus.

Despite the late time of year we have plenty of flowers - 

The white phlox is lighting up the garden and filling the air with its scent.

 Cosmos and Japanese anemones also are white flowers that have come into their own.
The Erigeron is spreading nicely beside the path down from the paved area to the lower path.

And we have a lot of colour with the Zinnias, alstroemeria and rudbeckia.

The pink Japanese anemones, because they were taking over the bed near the house, were moved to the banking below the lawn to fight with the weeds and are doing well, but I missed a small piece of root and we have flowers in the original bed. 

So to the cardoons, their heads weighing down the stems - they need steel poles to hold them erect.

Another flower fighting the weeds is the tansy. I brought this back from Connemara some years ago - no doubt in flagrant contravention of some law or another. It is good to run one's hand through the plant and inhale the smell.

And then there is what I call Phebe's rose, Rosa rubifolia, from her garden at Wormleighton Manor and carefully taken by me from house to house. Last year it looked tired but now is loaded with hips. Below it R has been waiting all summer for her Lavandula x clementii Barnsley, a tree mallow, to flower and it is just getting going.
 
So there are cats, squirrels, rats and rabbits and birds in the garden and this -
 

And I have just watched a willow warbler on the shed roof.

 

Last night Monty Don gave advice re pears, when and how to pick etc - so off down the garden, lift the pear and it comes away easily with stem attached so need 2 days ripening on a sunny windowsill leaving the stem on.

PLANS

I am going to mow the lawn - no I am not - the lower garden is just too wet. However the part that the gardener drained is actually a bit better. So I cut 

back the willows around the compost heaps and peeled old bark off the white birches. Then I collected mint, chopped it and put in a jar with malt vinegar so I can have mint sauce with my lamb all winter. The bay trees have been pruned - with secateurs to look better - shears or trimmers leave unsightly cut leaves.

Most of the plantain is raked out of the pond and sitting at the side to let creatures slither back into the water. R is happier as she likes to see uncluttered water surface and reflections.

I am thinking of moving the veg beds lower in the garden but more away from tree. Then the best lawn area can be extended further towards the big  damson tree. Perhaps raised beds - they will need a rabbit proof fence around them.

Thinking about  changing the bed by the paving with the pinks removed (no idea where to put them) and the box trees in pots put there as box balls to be.

The shed has been sorted, tidied, the ravages of the mice in the peanuts sorted and I have over 200 plastic flowerpots. Recycling here I come except J wants the 2 litre ones to move her garden to a local hostelry where she is doing the garden.


I went out with the sit-on mower - I mean it has not rained for several days - but as you can see the grass was not appreciative of my efforts. Anyway this afternoon, Wednesday, it is pouring down again so no more mow for now.

When the sun does shine, after rain, the air is crisp and bright and the upper wood a delight. In fact, on Monday, crossing Kirkby Moor we could see the Isle of Man 45 miles away, and returning the hills of Snowdonia in North Wales 85 miles to the south.

 We still have roses in flower and the cosmos and anemone 
light up the bed outside the big doors. The Mexican fleabane, I think, is in the wrong place as I am not a fan of white and yellow together.

A bumper crop of Bramley apples is on the way, the rabbits appreciating the windfall as the tree self thins its fruit.

As we are in England the weather needs talking about though what I would like to say is probably represented by a load of asterisks - 
*********!

At the far top of the wood the boggy bit is full of watercress (and maybe flukes?)

 Perhaps I will redo the back bed where the herbs grow - but then, where to where do I move the herbs?
Sweet Cicely, apple mint and lovage.

Anyway have just eaten a good herb omelette made with R and J's wonderful eggs.
The house martins are gone south I think, I have just seen rook with a twig in its bill - nest building already??

Time for a cup of tea.