SEPTEMBER

 

There are still flowers - the rose Grouse, a vicious ground cover plant, and the canna lily we were given is coming out. Small cyclamen by the old log pile, crocosmia and the hydrangeas.

Elsewhere we are into a world of seedheads be they wild or not. The broad-leaved willowherb, a persistent frequent weed, though easy to pull out sows itself everywhere but, en masse, its tangled seedheads catch the light and have a fascination of their own. The alliums leave an explosion on a stem and even the small brown cups of seed on the red campion are not unattractive.

I am concerned that couple of trees have dry crisp leaves that are falling prematurely especially the grey poplar.

The paper-like leaves crunch underfoot.

The gardener has been strimming again and begun the task of levelling the area by the old compost heaps. R is dead heading and her new crinodendrum has arrived and been out. I have been trimming various bushes to more of a topiary like shape - but not so neat. One of the buddleias has the dreaded honey fungus.

Trees are a dominant feature of the garden, framing and creating views.

The raspberries are tidied and happy, we are eating the plums straight from the tree and the damsons are coming ready. We have lots of pears but the apples are a bit few and far between after zealous pruning last year.

The hypericum sows itself everywhere - too much everywhere but has good colour now in fruit.

I have to cook some chicken thighs as searching for last year's damsons for R to make some jam I left them out of the freezer. Have done a chinese dish with hoisin sauce etc. 

So, the nights draw in and the temperatures fall, yet another summer passing and soon the garden will need bedding down for colder days - but not quite yet.

AFTER THE SUN, RAIN AND JAM

 Comes rain, but first we did get a little solar comfort.

Now it is Friday and raining. The Hydrangea Annabelle will be prostrated on the ground and it had been doing well. It never quite recovers as the flowerheads are so large and, when wet, heavy.

Our red climbing roses, one came from P one from A and P are in fine fettle on the shed and up the holly tree in the bottom hedge. One of our golden showers yellow roses died but I had forgotten that I had such a cutting in  a veg bed and it is flowering. Now I have to decide where to plant it.

Saturday and still raining a lot.

So what to do? Hooray for freezers where lurketh raspberries. And Hooray for Mrs Beeton's great jam recipe - 2 1/2 lb raspberries, 3 lb sugar. Bring fruit gently to the boil then boil hard for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sugar (warmed in oven) till dissolved. Bring to boil and boil hard 1 minute. skim and put in jars. Note - these are 12oz jars so just over 5 lbs jam. Tighten lids and label. Enjoy hearing lids pop as vacuum seal occurs with cooling.

The hen pheasant has abandoned her nest on the lower banking and the eggs are cold. With magpies and stoats about I am surprised they have not been eaten. I assume she will try again, hopefully somewhere less vulnerable - but will not bet on it.

We have bright colours still though we are entering the August hiatus.

The pond looks much better now a lot of vegetation has been cleared although moving the stuff the gardener dug out was strenuous for an old bloke. You can see the uncut tuft on the banking where the nest is.

Message for Paul - we have one big gunnera leaf so the plant has taken.

I have just noticed that the grey poplar has shot up and is now as tall as its neighbour, the eucalyptus. Both look good, grey against a blue sky. (The blue sky was yesterday)

The veg beds are ok but nothing to shout about - here front to back, carrots, marrow and broccoli. We have courgettes and some weedy parsnips, a small patch of parsley, chives by the handful but I am not a great veg man - too much like hard work. I like to shove things in and feed and water them - if the do well ok, if not - c'est la vie (or in the case of my veg mort.)

Still some sweet peas amazingly. Not stupendous but enough for a vase or two in the house.

JANUARY

Why does it always seem to be 4 pm?

It is Saturday. We went for a walk and saw our first lesser celandine lighting up a hedge bottom. From my window I watch a procession of pheasants pass my window. First three plump hens, then one skinnier hen and finally a cock pheasant strutting his stuff, a bit Trump like. I am not sure if five is enough to declare I have seen a bouquet of pheasants but that is their collective noun.

A trip to the lower lawn reveals we have a disastrous problem with a large area bog. Somehow the drain we put in is not doing its job and the water is soaking into the turf, then gathering in the old, now filled in stream bed, and reemerging further down - where, in fact, I bogged down the lawn tractor.

Here and there a pearl of white signifies a snowdrop just emerging but not yet open. The year is almost stirring despite the cold and flurries of snow.

The garden is almost devoid of wildlife though a caught a pair of rabbits scooting up the bottom lawn this morning and mole hills have started to appear. Also there are other birds - a feather in a bush, I think a pigeon.

Then we have a sprinkling of overnight snow.

And now there is evidence of rabbits - tracks everywhere. And on the track to the house, tyre marks from the paper delivery, footprints and dog prints from a walker taking the bridleway.

 

And still we get spectacular sunrises.

And then we get up on Sunday and all the snow has gone. Still some ice on the pond but not a lot - that will please the moorhens. 

So what to do in the lockup, tidy the dead bits from the garden - the lemon balm is well dead. 

So I made some Covid blackcurrant jam with fruit from the freezer.

We walk the lanes, drink endless cups of tea - well, almost - I never seem to get past half a cup and throw the rest away.

Tuesday and a glorious day, morning light makes the garden glow. 

Then Wednesday and it RAINS. Sam the gardener comes clad in his waterproofs. Shifts some manure and cuts back all the dead vegetation between the house and the garden. Now we can see a long way. A bit early to do some of the buddleias but what the . . . 

R shoots out to the supermarket. I make marmalade. Well something to do on the lock up. I have also ordered some plants from Sarah Raven as I had a £10 voucher - and ended up spending much more - on cosmos, verbena, ammi and sweet peas.

I have just read a marvellous book by Leokadia Majewicz about her terrible time as a Pole exiled by Stalin to Russia as slave labour when a girl. Then I realised she was the elder sister of an old friend and artist George Kosinski who now lives in America. It is a small world sometimes. 

Finding reading matter with libraries closed is hard. Accessed Jo Nesbo's Knife via Borrow Box, a library on-line site, but could not read it as it was so depressing and we need something to cheer us up.

And just as I am about be really glum P send photos of our grandchildren in Oxford and I see snowdrops flowering on the upper banking. 

And now I notice the stream disappearing into its bed near the compost heaps. I think it is draining into the soakaway for the septic tank, well I hope it is, but it could just be running underground to emerge somewhere else, like where the ground has become a quagmire? Water has a way of insinuating itself into unwanted corners, leaking in unwanted places and generally just being a nuisance. Mind you I say that in a place where we usually have no shortage of the stuff. I might feel differently if I lived in a desert.

Waiting for a vaccination.

DAISY DAYS (AND SPIKE JONES?)

Got that song of his going through my head - Mairzy Doats - very sad. Spike Jones and the Wacky Wacketeers (he was also with the City Slickers). I think my parents must have had a 78rpm disc of it, possibly with Three Little Fishies on the other side?

Back to partial sanity.

Daisies, such a huge family of flowering plants - daisies of all sorts and plants that look like daisies, feverfew and olearia, erigeron by the paving down from the house, and daisies, proper ones -in the lawn and ox-eyes in the long grass.

Just been down to the damson trees to check on the pocket plum - Taphrina pruni - a fungal disease, and there are a lot of mite galls on the leaves. At least the latter is harmless.

One thing that a garden can bring is flowers into the house. (Is or are - lots of flowers but 'one thing' ? Grammar, grammar.) And at this time of year that means roses. Roses with alchemilla and geranium, roses with roses and roses with lovage.

 

Not forgetting pinks. Yesterday I noticed a shrub that was a but boring had produced white flowers. It had done nothing at the back of the house so I stuck it in the lower banking. Then I realised it was a eucryphia about which I had forgotten. You can just see the flowers on the right of the small pic.

Nearly hacking back time for the geraniums - cut them back to the ground and they will burgeon forth with, possibly, another flush of flowers in the autumn.

Some flowers in the garden, especially pale pink ones just quietly get on with it. Like this pink evening primrose and the Allium Christophii. The latter appear from long grass, amongst the Rosa rugosa, in many places where they have been forgotten.

Friday/Saturday and it is raiiiiiining so bag of Seville oranges out of the freezer and making marmalade - 

To the recipe - 9 Seville (bitter) oranges, one sweet one and a couple of lemons, squeeze out juice, put pips etc into muslin bag, put peel and pith through a mincer. Shove the lot into a big jam pan with bag of bits hanging in it. Leave 24 hours.
Bring to boil and simmer till rind soft - say a couple of hours.
Add 8 pounds sugar (I warm it in the bottom range oven first) and stir over low heat till all sugar dissolved, Boil hard for 10 minutes and begin testing by taking off heat and putting a small spoonful on plate chilled in fridge. Push with finger and when ripples - done. You may need to repeat this a few times if not yet ready, boiling for a minute or two and then testing again.
You may need to do it in 2 batches depending on pan size. 
Put into hot jars and seal, label and eat.

Breakfast and open a jar and there is an earwig running about on top of the jam. Now it could not have been in there before I opened the jar - too hot - jars sealed when jam very hot. So?
I had been in the garden and the insect must have dropped off me after I opened the jar. R shudders and says there is no way she is eating that marmalade. I take the earwig outside, then return to my bread. At least I have not eaten bread and earwig.

Sunday and a novelty as we walk the 1 mile into town after breakfast and enjoy a coffee outside the Farmers' Arms pub after having temperature taken. On the way back we meet good friend NC who tells us that there is a juvenile heron standing in a field by the road. It just stands there and ignores us. The herons that visit our pond usually fly off at the slightest thing.

Picking last of red currants, more raspberries and black currants. Threatening the raspberries with the bonfire seems to have worked. Lots of pears, plums and apples to come. And first of chard for tonight. Lawns too wet to mow. 

Did nothing in garden (well picked more raspberries to go with meringue and cream).