THE BATTLE AT THE NOOK, THE TRAGEDY OF THE ASH

What do you do if the two gardeners living at a site disagree about the garden?

One wants a more formal room structure to the garden with neat hedges, well drained lawns and a separate wild garden. The other likes a random appearance with an evolving garden where wild and more formal blend into one another.
The first is tidy and organised, the second is not.

The image of the pittosporum ball illustrates the dilemma - R loves to prune and shape and control the plants. She would be a topiary fanatic if let loose.

This does have some advantages - the cutleaved elder needed taking back to near the ground to get new young growth next year. So I let her at it.

The pressure is building and I think I am losing. The jungle is being tamed and threats of diggers and drains looms.

I have a rough patch by the stream where yellow rattle, ragged robin and teasel thrive and so far she had been thwarted in attempts to "tidy this up".

Now to something a lot more threatening - the ash tree disease. As usual the powers that be have footled about when action was needed but, probably, the spread was unavoidable, sooner or later.

The problem is our small mature woodland area is 80% Ash. Some of the younger trees are beautifully shaped and then older ones a haven for wildlife.

One question begs to be answered - why import ash saplings?

In the spring and summer seedlings are everywhere and surely this country could have provided its own young trees.

Of course then there is the question of MONEY! It was almost certainly cheaper to get them from abroad.

One consolation is that, by the time it reaches here, there will be little point in burning all the wood to prevent its spread and we will have enough logs to last us until we are 150!

SONG FOR A TREE

(from the Norse)

Ash .....

our flesh is your wood,

you are the Tree of the World*,

you are my hammer haft,

and cleft the cure of my child.

Your flesh comes late,

goes so soon.

Ash .....

when your leaves fall

your limbs are bare and grey.

When a gale blows

your one-winged keys

spin to another day;

your black caps mourn.

Ash .....

your wood is white

and hardened in the years;

your sawn branch

cleaves well, burns long.

Summers ascend in smoke,

and that which remains ..........

*Yggdrasil

IS OUR AGA GREEN?

Well, no - it is the traditional cream colour.

Not very green then - but -

we rarely have the central heating on, as, with the kitchen door and other doors open, it heats the whole house,

we do not have a tumble drier, do not need one,

we do not have and electric toaster, kettle, coffee machine and so on,

our appliance will last for years and years - no need to replace items including cookers - and how much ‘carbon’ is burned making those things and creating the electricity to run them?

When I calculate the cost of running it with how much I would have to pay out to run all the substitutes then I think I win!

And, last of all, it is a wet winter’s day and you come in from the garden to a wonderfully warm kitchen . . .

And imagine being a cat or a dog and lying down on the floor and stretching out in the warmth . . . let alone reviving a newborn lamb in a box in the warming oven with the door open.

So, I await the backlash . . .

To the garden - the ash trees have all lost their leaves now and I have been collecting leaves for leaf mould and putting them in my big builder’s bag - see photo. I could get a blower but the two pieces of wood and the broom work very well. I looked at last year’s leaf mould and it is about three quarters of the way to being good - they do compost slowly.

The sun has just come out and the coal tits emerged to raid the birdfeeder. The other day we were in the kitchen when R noticed a big bird sitting on top of the feeder pole.

It was a Peregrine!! Obviously it was looking for lunch. Geese are going over regularly from Duddon to Morecambe Bay and vice versa. Frost is forecast for Friday.

The enormous sack of daffs and other narcissi never seems to empty. Have just planted under the willow tunnel sides so should be good in the spring and gets me out of cutting and tidying there until July when the bulbs have fattened up for next year.

It is so still outside, as if the world is waiting for - winter, weather, what?

What? The top pond has sprung a leak and needs rescuing. This serves me right for just digging a hole and not lining it, also the summer downpours have dumped a load of mud and silt in it so it is only very shallow. Now, excavating that is a back-ache job which I have just partially done.
At least water has returned and levels have risen.

 I have still not repaired the cold frame tops as I got the measurements wrong and haven’t got back to the shop - anyway the wood store needs a gutter so the list grows.

And then there is the 1960s shame to get over of being member 18950 of the Teen and Twenty Disc Club from Radio Luxembourg - 10 pm after the Deep River Boys - Member number 1 - J Saville!

BOG, FROGS, LOGS and THINGS

The main image is a view of the Wendy House from the bog area. R has been slaving away down there cutting back the long growth (and uncovering frogs).
The sweet peas have stopped flowering and are on the compost heap - roots left in the soil with their nitrogen fixing bacteria. The wallflowers I sowed earlier in the year are a bit moth-eaten but okay now I have weeded around them. I have pruned the lower parts of the willow tunnel and the prunings have gone to a friend as wands to be pushed into the ground on his small holding for a nascent hedge.

The other two pictures are of fruit - two of our few damsons and our one meal's worth of Victoria Plums.

As the cauliflowers and beetroot have not been a raving success (or any success) (well, did get one big beetroot) I have been searching the market stalls for the cheapest good quality veg and have made Borscht and Cauliflower and Cumin soups. These are now in the freezer.

The asparagus has been cut back and the ferns put on the bonfire (which has no chance of lighting without a flame thrower).
I have potted up tulips, and daffs for outside pots and popped some yellow pansies in the top as this looked good last year. One of the tulips I used was the striking 'Queen of the Night' - almost black. Three small pots of daffs have been put under the sink in the utility room in the, probably vain, hope they will flower for Christmas.

In the garden the coal tits - I have counted 7 at once on the feeders outside the window - are busy burying the sunflower seed. We came home the other day as a mute swan went over its wings whooshing loudly and the buzzard has come back to its tree by the wood.

On the hoggin path a curious fungus has emerged - Orange Peel Fungus - Aleuria aurantia - a rich deep colour against the drab path. There is not too much sign this year of the dreaded honey fungus but it still lingers near some old wood chippings. If you dig a little you find the 'bootlaces' of its mycelium.

In the garden we recycle as much as possible, plastic bottles at the bottom of big tubs rather than crocks (this makes the tub lighter and you need less compost), willow wands all over the place, compost, leaf mould and so on - voice in back of my head - "You are repeating yourself" - well, the garden repeats - seasons and thus, so do I. (Senility does not help.)

Soon it will be shrub moving, tree planting time.
"We have enough trees!"
Mmm! I have just entered a competition where the first prize is £2000 worth of trees.
I will just have to get one giant redwood then.

TO TIDY OR NOT TO TIDY?

- that is the question.

As I sit here watching the ash leaves fall like yellow snow onto the lawn that I have just mown, (a great way of collecting the leaves), I am undergoing an internal debate over whether to leave the dead stems of perennials till spring or tidy up the garden, get it spruce before the winter.

The control freak in me wants to make it all organised, manured and ready for next year. The naturalist wants me to leave it all for the wildlife. The grasses would be left anyway - they look so spectacular in a hoar frost.

Do I cut back the phlox, dig up all the bolted leeks, fork over beds, clear the streams - or not?

R has trimmed the vegetation at the side of the stream and I can now see it has silted up with the debris washed down by the storm rain - of which we have had plenty this summer. Though it is autumn, summer is back again today - it is raining.

We are just back from southwest Scotland where they are at least a week nearer winter. We went to the Wigtown Book Festival and heard Miriam Darlington on her book on otters - 'Otter Country'. Afterwards we walked around the White Loch of Myrton. The dreaded Japanese Knotweed was there as well as a strong bloom of green algae. The more the farmers fertilise the fields the worse this will get.

Whilst we were away it must have poured down for the track up to the house has developed channels where the water has washed away the lighter chippings.

Despite fruit and veg disasters this year one success has been the carrots planted in plastic tubs with the bottoms knocked out. Supermarkets cannot compete with the sweetness of newly pulled carrots.

Yet, I have had to go to the market and but beetroot and cauliflowers for our soup. I did wait until they came down to a reasonable price. As it is raining this afternoon will be cooking day, make soup, pot it in plastic containers and freeze.

In the depths of winter there is nothing as good as hot home made soup for lunch. Well, perhaps a deep-fried Mars Bar and chips with chutney and mushy peas? (I do not really mean that.)

I wonder about myxomatosis being back - lately we seem to have had only a solitary rabbit in the garden; the same cannot be said of the squirrels, which must have bred like rabbits. (I know that is not genetically accurate and we are talking dreys not warrens but you get the gist.)

Another puff of wind and another leaf-storm outside my window, time for home made soup.

AUTUMN HAS COME WITH A RUSH

So, between the showers and rain
I have failed to get a tan.

However the garden has turned colour early.
The shrubs and trees we planted over the last few years, especially with autumn in mind are strutting their stuff. Even the fig leaves (not needed in such a cold wet summer) have gone a lovely pale yellow. (So have the raspberries but that is another story that has gone viral.)


Here are some of the shrubs etc.

The first is Acer palmatum 'Sango-kaku' which was given to me by my elder sister and is now about six years old. I have trimmed the wispy bits of dead twig they seem to get at the end of the branches to make things tidy. Tidiness is not one of my fortes but the wildlife in the garden will not mind.

In a row of three are, from left to right, Euonymus elatus. Liquidambar styraciflua and Rhus typhina 'Dissecta'.

The insect life has not yet left the garden and the last of the swallows, possibly going south from the far north, still fly about.
Last year I planted some Verbena bonariensis, (an 'in' flower), with not much success but this year they have been tremendous.

They are in amongst the roses and Japanese Anemones with an underplanting of a large catmint.

Now, there are always a few surprises at this time of year - I don't mean yet another heavy shower though I have just run around the bird feeders topping them up before the heavenly taps are turned on again (we have 8 feeders) - for instance, an oriental poppy has decided to open a bud and blaze away in the greenery.

I will also have a few bonfire dilemmas to come.
1. Will it be full of creatures - thinking of hedgehogs and so on?
2. Will it light?!! It is so sodden it might just have to be left to rot down to compost.
3. Can I even get to it as the surrounding cut turf is squelchy?
4. Do we buy fireworks? Well, the answer to that one is only if the grandchildren are here.

It is interesting how this time of year affects different people differently.
For some this is the best time of year, for others the looming threat of S.A.D. hovers in the increasing darkness.

For me spring seems a long way away at the moment and between now and then there is a lot of clearing up and manure shifting to be done.
I just hope next summer is worth waiting for. This one was literally a wash-out. I can count on my fingers the number of days when the temperature has been into the 70s.

Sad, isn't it?

HAS ANYBODY SEEN NOAH?

The only problem with the Ark was the two rabbits, two grey squirrels, two slugs, two snails - you get what I mean.

On the other hand if it keeps on raining - well?

Our small stream is usually pretty dry by now.
It tumbles out of the wood through a bank of wild flowers - at this time of year especially wild angelica.

Apart from a very brief respite it has rained for 48 hours and is not due to stop before 5 a.m. in the morning. Being on a hill the house is okay but the garden is suffering. The grey poplar that fell over earlier in the year has broken its ties and has had to be pulled upright again and retied to its stakes. I did clear the watercress from the stream so the flood rushes through and off to bother someone else.

The small bridges are either washed away or under water. Leeks stand in puddle filled trenches and the lawns have to be forbidden territory.
Fortunately a friend came and left us some wonderful beetroot to add to my one root.
Consequently I have been making Borscht.

Recipe - Ingredients -
2 lb beetroot, large onion, medium potato, 2 oz butter, veg. stock 4 pints, cider vinegar 6 tablesp., (I like to add a couple of teasp. of Agnes Rose Raspberry Vinegar), Marmite 2 teasp., Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

Chop veg, fry onion in butter till transparent, add other veg and stock, bring to boil - 5 mins, simmer 1 hour (bottom oven of Aga), let cool, whizz in blender, add rest of ingredients (plenty salt and pepper), put in plastic pots and freeze.
You can freeze in plastic bags in square containers and then remove from the container. The soup can then be stacked in the freezer like bricks.

Talking of manure, this is the mountain in the paddock next to the house from where I can take free supplies. In fact the more I can take the more grateful they are.

I wonder how they managed in the Ark. Perhaps they threw it over the side?

They must have had the same dilemma and solution that the astronauts will have on the way to Mars. Recycle and grow veg from the stuff.
But on an Ark where there are 2 of everything?!

Mmm!

GLOBAL WHATTING?

The skies weep, my garden is a hankie.

And the rain it raineth,

still falls the rain,

it’s raining, its pouring,

the old man is snoring -

enough of the quotes

and I am told on good authority that I have been known to snore occasionally (every night!)

Giant Despair is at the door.

It has rained for 10 hours and is forecast to do so for another 24.

The lawns are waterlogged and unmown - 'Keep off the Grass' definitely applies - not that there is much grass left in many places, just moss, mud and reeds.

On a better note the blackcurrants, rhubarb and watercress (we cannot eat it because of the danger of flukes) have thrived,

BUT -

all else is crop flop.

The asparagus failed, leeks have bolted, beetroot and parsnips would not germinate and, go away to Herefordshire for 5 days, and slugs, snails and caterpillars have stripped the sprouts and kale.

Wooden steps and fence posts rot and the boardwalk is unsafe - the BOG garden is superquaggy.

This is the worst summer I can remember - and it has been cold with far too little sunshine - figs and squashes - Ha!

We do have four damsons, eight plums, three apples, no pears, no greengages and no figs.

There is mildew on the purple prunus - so it looks pink, the leaves have fallen off many of the roses, three amelanchiers are dead and the oak in the lawn is turning early.

Weeds thrive, long grass is unstrimmed so bulbs are not being planted.

So I will make blackcurrant jam with fruit from the freezer - but I am on a slimming diet so cannot eat it!

Moan, moan, moan!

So only one cure - go to Avanti in Kirkby Lonsdale for lunch with wife, sister-in-law and her husband. (Must take a brolly).

Salad for me - (the chives have done well.) 

The wellies are at rest.

WIGGLED OUR WAY TO HEREFORDSHIRE

We have been away enjoying some sunshine (it rained as we arrived back) (and is still raining) firstly in Herefordshire and then Oxford. The garden has been left to its own devices, and those of the grey squirrels.

In Oxford went to the Botanical Gardens where they are experimenting with meadows and prairie like planting. This looked interesting and great for wildlife.
There was also and aged Betula utilis var. jacquemontii. Now I know how big ours will get - but after we are gone.

Just as we were leaving a load of bulbs arrived - you know the cheap sack from the wholesalers - but they do well when naturalised. (It means that I cannot cut the grass there till July.)
This is a wonderful hideaway for frogs and toads and voles and mice. The voles and mice make tunnels at the soil level and have a network of highways where they can travel unseen by the kestrel.

Having been away and having had a little time to think - it was a little as we were staying with the grandchildren (and their parents) - big plans materialised. There will be a fence and gate here, steps there, part of the stream will be tamed, the lower pond will be let go and become bog (this frees me from of digging it out), divide and replant this and that, put Camassia bulbs in the woodland shade . . . .

Talking of septic tanks the experiment of planting buddleia to hide it has worked. We did one side first and now I have put rooted cuttings on the other side. It is serviced in early March so they will be cut back every year just before that. It does mean the plastic monstrosity will be on view for a few weeks before the new shoots come but the butterflies will love the flowers.

Going to the 

Botanical Gardens did make me

think about the uses of plants - not just medicinal ones. In the bed by the house where the soil is poor and dry (well, not so dry this year) grows Roseroot, an old favourite of my mother. The sap in the roots smells strongly of roses and can be used to make rosewater even if you do not have a rose in your garden.

Which brings me to horseradish, digging up some of the root, peeling it and grating it. You may think onions are tearful but you ain't cried nothing yet. It can be stored for the winter roast beef, to have with fish and so on.

It is also time to collect mint, chop it and store it - I do this in jars with vinegar. Then it can be used when needed with a little water and sugar for the mint sauce. You can put the leaves in a plastic bag and freeze them. Take the bag and crush the contents - they crumble in the hand. A plant can be dug up and kept through the winter on a kitchen windowsill or leaves can even be frozen in ice.
In fact freezing a small piece of lemon with a borage flower in a cube of ice is a great way to decorate you winter sloe gin and tonic.

The roses are heavy with hips. I suppose no one makes rose hip syrup now, just uses the insides as itching powder.

Time for a scratch.

IT CAN GET WILDER

But slowly.

Go away for a while - and the grass is a bit longer, some new weeds grow, some flowers go over but the wild garden is unchanged in such a short time.

I have extracted the watercress from the top settling pond - built in a vain hope that the silt and mud washed down the stream would stay there and leave the bottom and larger pond unclogged. The last of the candelabra primulas have been dead-headed and the seed sown - best when fresh. I would like the whole hedge ditch full of them (sort of Harlow Carrish).

The land between our track and the field fence belongs to a local Town Trust and is rented to a local farmer. Though the lambs escape earlier in the year and dine on the grass, later a lot of it is taken over by thistles and nettles - but not all. One banking by an elder tree is covered in yarrow and harebells. I have been out with the sickle cutting down the nettles and thistles - but too late as usual - seed is set.

The House Martins are still returning to the nest for the night. This is above one of our bedroom windows and in the early morning, cup of tea in hand, I can sit in bed and watch them flying in and out. Yesterday I filled in their details for the BTO survey. Up to now they have always nested at a nearby house but last year they painted their walls and woodwork destroying the old nests. So a search was made for alternative accommodation and we were chosen.

On the path to the Wendy House we have an old log pile - this has been unused and is now some 7 years old - a wonderful habitat.

If the paper says once more that the heat wave will be soon over I shall scream. What heat wave. True we have had a little less rain and it has been warmer but heat wave?!

Even the pheasant has been bedraggled and birds have had to shelter where they can.

Now I am planning winter jobs - not just muck and digging but more the paths will need rechipping (is that a word?), some repairs will be needed to walkways and the stream needs revising. I will also have to think about drainage. (I would not have to if it had not rained so much this year.)

Plans are afoot for transplanting crocosmia thinnings onto wild bankings to keep grass down and for variety. When I dig up overgrown perennials I cannot just throw away the unwanted material - it goes somewhere - or other - a remote overgrown corner where suddenly the grass is topped by japenese anemones or sidalcea.

The sky, so blue this morning, is darkening again.

A SENSE OF WINDING DOWN

The garden I mean, not the gardener. He wound down about 66 years ago.

As I watch a coal tit take seed from the feeder outside my window (and probably burying it)(and forgetting where it is)(yes, they do that just like jays and squirrels) I note that the weather is set fair(ish) for the next few days.

R weeded, D planted 17 buddleias grown from cuttings on the top banking. There have been so few butterflies this year.

The coal tit is back, has chased off a chaffinch, and is throwing out any seed that is not perfect - until it finds one just right. No wonder the feeders empty so fast.

The winter broccoli is planted - for harvesting in early spring - yet the leaves on some of the raspberry canes are yellowing - put on lots of manure and stuff to make sure no mineral deficiency.

The wood has been quiet but this morning I heard the rooks - they have returned to the tall trees next door. (The Archers can go up on Lakey Hill again.) (English radio programme).

There is a sense of autumn in the air - some leaves are starting to turn, teasels are in seed (can tell by the goldfinches feeding on them).

The Magnolia grandiflora has not flowered again this summer and neither has the Eucryphia - which did last year.

This morning dug out a ditch by the copper beech hedge (young and growing) as the surrounding area is waterlogged - phew!

The raspberries are actually looking decidedly ill - leaves curling and yellowing. I think we have the virus. They may have to be dug up and burned and then new canes planted somewhere else. We love our raspberries but they may have to go. Now the dilemma - do we wait or get on with it?

The house martins are still returning to the nest though well fledged - a bit like children?

A huge box of cheap grade z daffs arrived today for planting under the grass in the bankings. I have tried the bulb planters but find the best way is to roll back a good turf, scatter and roll it back. The turf does need to be thick enough.

The forecast is dry so we need sun and wind to ease the wetness - in fact we need a dry three weeks at least - Ha! Ha!

I often end with time for a cuppa tea but as I am going out - time for a pint of Wainwright.

WHY WAS­ I NOT BORN WITH WEBBED FEET?

Presumably because I am not a duck or a frog.

Good day/bad day, dry day/wet day, what next?

Finally got into the garden this morning and put up the buzzard - it was sitting on top of the bonfire - (not lit). R cut back the remaining geraniums and tidied well whilst I trimmed the santolina - taking heeled cuttings as usual - and cut down the lovage.

I saved a few stems for drying and making into pea-shooters for the grandchildren. Won’t I be popular!

Some of the plants in the garden are huge this year. The Japanese anemones are six feet tall and the cardoon is ten feet high and growing.

Now, I said that we had no damsons - well, we have three and a half (a small one). Not going to be a very big crumble though, nor will the three Bramley apples. Still, we had over 20 pounds of blackcurrants and loads of raspberries.

Then I began the heavy job of moving compost.

We have three compost bins, one with two bays and about three grass heaps. Today I emptied one bay and wheeled it down to a heap at the far end of the garden. Then I moved the compost in the remaining bay sideways mixing it well. All the time I was forking away I was followed by our robin - it waits for me to turn the soil and then searches for food.

Today we found that the main path, a hoggin one, has developed a gelatinous fungus - a curious revolting thing, shuddery to touch.

I cannot mow the lawn - there is still standing water in the tracks from the mower wheels and I do not want to do more damage.

We have three large plants growing wild in the garden - most abundant is the Wild Angelica, then the prolific Teasel loved by goldfinches and lastly the nasty Hogweed. Beware the sap of this plant - it blisters worse than that of Rue - I know - I strimmed with sleeves rolled up and paid the price.

And the giant pumpkin - big as a kumquat - it fell off in the last downpour.

This is not a pumpkin (or fig) year.

THERE I’VE SAID IT AGAIN

THERE I’VE SAID IT AGAIN

(Vaughan Monroe, Bobby Vinton)

After 278 blogs I am repeating myself. This is not surprising as the garden goes round with the year and things come back again and again.

So I apologise if I say things more than once, like, I have been attacked by a horsefly AGAIN! - AND IT IS RAINING - what a summer! I know I go on about the rain but it really has been an awful summer. (Unless you are a rhubarb plant.) (Or a bog one.)

The garden is full of birdsong once more and the birds are queuing at the feeders. Mrs Pheasant wanders around with her four offspring. The other morning she sat down in the grassy centre of the track to he house. R was on her way out in the car. The bird, grudgingly, moved and the four chicks emerged from her feathers and skittered about before diving after Mum into the undergrowth. Just noticed the house martins are beginning to build again under the gable end - seems a bit late to me but I suppose there will give them a ready nest next year. If I go out of the kitchen door I am assailed by swallows as they try to chase me away from the nest above me.

An extract from this blog has appeared in The English Garden magazine on the Wiggly Wigglers page - about jam and chutney making. Ah! Fame at last.

Just got my Wiggly pack and the birds have got the seed - Thank you!

Fruit - this year is a damson, plum, greengage, pear disaster. Hot weather in March, then frost in April - nothing has set. The outdoor tomatoes have flowers but no fruit either - virtually no bees around to pollinate them. Or is it just too wet?

Despite providing flowers for my son’s wedding at the end of July the plants have recovered. (We did not have enough sweet peas then but were allowed to raid G and L’s garden as they were away - thanks to them for saving our bacon.)

R asks me what she can do in the garden - well, everything! No, that is a bit mean, so she has done a great job weeding the asparagus bed and the veg beds.

Now, how is this for a hobby - ditch digging! It should be in the Olympics - ditch digging and hedge-laying? and ploughing? Have just cleared out the channel between the pond and the Wendy House (for the uninitiated the Wendy House is an insulated wired up shed R uses for writing and doubles as a cheap spare room with a sofa bed.) This is heavy work and tough for an old codger so have to have a cuppa after a welcome shower.

Talking of showers - as I consistently repeat myself with the word RAIN I will correct that for today.

The sun is shining!!

(More precipitation due tomorrow)

This is tomorrow - the lawn is growing and IT IS RAINING!

LAWN CUTTING AVOIDANCE COMPLEX

This is, of course, Meadowsweet which grows abundantly in the wet areas of the garden. Its scent is heady but it is prone to mildew.

Which brings me to wet.

It is raining again. The paper today announces a heatwave - get the barbecues out - but only for the South East. Hey you journalists, there are other people living in the UK. In fact more of us live north of Watford then South of it.
It always amazes me how, on the BBC forecast, they whizz up the east coast (or down) round Scotland, to N.I., Wales and the South West, along the channel and back to the Midlands and East Anglia. Nobody lives in North West England (let alone the Isle of Man).

Back to gardening - I have been down in the bottom corner clearing out the lush growth from the streams - watercress by the armsful. (Is there a word armsful or should it be arms full?) (Prefer the former so there is a word armsful now - take note OED) I have decided to start at the lowest point and work upwards through the ponds.

One side effect of working there is wetleg.
(Another new word.)
So far the wellies do not leak - but the trousers do.

My boardwalk made from cast off scaffolding planks is beginning to crumble. Odd planks are giving way and I cannot face replacing them all.
So it is patch and mend, stick new old planks on top of the bad ones. This will mean more chicken wire around each plank as they become very slippery when wet.

Now, talking of rain, sometimes it freezes and I took this image the other day - in summer. Sadly I missed the weed growing under the wisteria.

Finally to the disease mentioned in the title of this blog - LAWN CUTTING AVOIDANCE COMPLEX.
I am not an obsessive compulsive mower and edge trimmer. As my wife sometimes hints - I like the wild and disorganised look a bit too much. I do have and Armani suit which I wear once every three years but am usually a bit frayed at the edges, cuffs (sleeves rolled up like my Dad did) and collar. Comfortable rather than smart is the motto and this also applies to the garden.

Ah! Yes - mowing, I put it off yesterday and luckily the grass is now too wet.
It is time we had a drought so the grass stops growing and I have no dilemma - should I, will I - etc?

On a lighter note - the house is full of sweet peas. I am picking almost every day. The scent is glorious. I have kept their predators at bay this year.

I must go to Harlow Carr outside Harrogate (RHS), they have a sweet pea bonanza going on, and drown in the scent - if it is not raining or the lawn needs mowing.

ANOTHER FINE MESS I'VE GOT ME INTO!

This is the lower garden down by the Wendy House looking up from the decking. The rail is by a footbridge and then a boardwalk meanders through the swamp. (Well, boggy area.) On the left are irises, white valerian and candelabra primulas, in the foreground alchemilla and beyond the rail is a pond, not that you can see it for growth at present. Another fine messy job I've got me into!
Not only the pond needs digging out but the various streams, the hedge ditch, the other pond and so on.
The land down there is so water logged that the amelanchiers have gone autumnal, (red leaves in the centre right), and then shed the lot.
The hedge to the left runs the length of the garden and is regrowing well after having been laid.
Other plants in this area include water cress (bane of my back), both plain and variegated flag iris, marsh thistle, ragged robin, assorted loosetrife, comfrey, pendulous sedge (beware it seeds itself everywhere and is a thug), hostas and euphorbia characias ssp Wufenii amongst others.
The pond is WILD! This means it is left to itself for most of the year and then brought back into the fold before it gets too out of hand. (As it is at the moment.) It is full of water snails, caddisfly larvae in their little houses, boatmen, pondskaters, damsel flies etc.

Now to grub - these are the last of the broad beans - disappointing but with the weather and lack of bees to fertilise them, not too bad. Carrots are coming on and one turnip left, a little netting has protected the Brussels Sprouts from the worst of the cabbage white butterfly caterpillars.

The wild bank is truly wild and the long grasses backlit in the evening are a delight.

Now I hate to throw anything away - most can be used somewhere, composted or, as a last result, go on the November bonfire. (The ashes then go on the blackcurrants as a good source of potash.)

As a poor artist I had a lot of rather rubbishy paintings on hardboard which had been waiting for some time to be useful. When I built a lean-to woodshed a year or so back I needed a wall of some sort and, Voila! or Eureka! or whatever - a hammer and a nail or two and my paintings were of some use after all.

As we are having a short burst of summer it is time to return to the garden whilst I can. No excuses are left - the sun is shining, or at least it was before I came in to write this blog - now it is cloudy again.

R is in her writing house tapping at her keyboard - time for the waiter to bring her tea and a biccy. (Moi!)
Will I get a tip?
Probably something like - 'It is better if you don't let the teabag soak in the milk before you add the boiling water.'

THE SKY IS FALLING, TURKEY-LURKEY - AN EMERGENCY BLOG

I thought summer had come as we ate our lunch in the garden - but that was not today.

The final broad beans were harvested, the bed dug over and raked and a rather late attempt to grow beetroot made. Last crop of black currants put in the freezer, old raspberry canes cut out, supporting posts and wires repaired and plants manured to stimulate new growth with well rotted horse manure from the stables outside our gate.

I cleared out the hedge by the wendy house and received a beauty of a horsefly bite to my left arm - they obviously objected to me taking the manure.

R deadheaded and pruned the senecio (the thing with a new name now) and the remains of its yellow flowers. Then she went down to the Wendy House and sat on the decking writing.
There were butterflies at last, unfortunately including the whites - brassicas beware - and the wild bank is now showing toadflax, corn cockle and henbit amongst other things.

Today began calm but milder than late and it looked like the sun might get out. Then a rumble of thunder and THE SKY FELL - not a turkey-lurkey nor a chicken-licken to be seen. It poured down and then, as if that was not enough, it hailed.

I suppose we are lucky it did not snow.

It was torrential and washed away my feeble stream crossings - just a load of old planks.

The leeks, grown in trenches, were in standing water and much of the manure, so carefully placed by the raspberries yesterday, was off to the sea.

British weather - no wonder we talk a lot about it - there is 

plenty to talk about as one never knows what is coming next (except rain) (but that is why the country is green). 

The Global Warming pundits warned that the north of Britain might get colder and wetter - they may well be right. The Olympic Games Committees have missed an opportunity - a Gold Medal for guessing what the weather will do next?

I wonder, after all the palaver in the spring, what I should do to conserve water?

AS SMALL AS A KUMQUAT

I have been experimenting by trying to grow pumpkins and such on the edge of the old horse manure heap. I have fended off the slugs and snails with flowerpots, bottoms removed, upturned and banded with copper tape. The plants are growing, very slowly as we have had no sunshine or warmth (till a little 20C yesterday)(rained again last night) but I have succeeded in getting a pumpkin to set. The only trouble is that it is the size of a kumquat!

The raspberries are over except for a few and the birds will have those. We are eating turnips and broad beans and are swamped by black currants.
I have frozen them, jammed them, made cassis (yum!), bartered them (for eggs) and given them to friends.
Not got to jelly yet but that is a bit of a palaver. I would have rather had red currant jelly but the birds got to the fruit first.
Rhubarb still doing well with the rain, leeks look great and we have sweet peas at last.
Took some to my hippy sister in Kendal yesterday and used some in the flowers we did for my son and his now wife's wedding a week ago.


I am gearing myself up to one of my favourite pastimes - digging out ditches - it has to be done but I will be covered in mud and wet and tired by the end of it - perhaps tomorrow.
Down by the pond the irises are over but their leaf blades contrast well with the rambling mimulus and watercress - in fact watercress everywhere clogging up streams and ponds. Beside the pond the loosetrife is flowering - the deep pink wild purple one, the pale version and the yellow by the hedge.

I have begun to chop back the alchemilla before it seeds everywhere - it does this far too freely.

I keep telling the swallows nesting under the covered area outside the kitchen door that they do not need to fly from the nest every time I walk out. Clearly they do not speak English. The same cannot be said for the grey squirrels - it only takes a stentorian, "I can see you," from me and they are off up the trees.

I have tidied my shed, a little, and found three containers full of engine oil, three for cleaning car upholstery, and now have some space - had actually, as it now has a large television stand occupying a disproportionate area of floor - from my son - can you just store it for me, I will put it on ebay.

We have three sheds - one for the water tank from the borehole where I keep hosepipes and stuff, one with mowers and flowerpots and a bench and one with a small mower and more of my two sons' 'stuff'. Down by the pond we also have a Wendy House - well a shed where my wife writes. We needed more space and putting in this insulated shed was the cheapest option. There is a small area of decking between it and the stream - a sun trap - if we ever get to see the sun again.

It is not raining.
I have to go out in the garden to justify doing little for the rest of the day.
I think I will walk up into the wood where sudden sunlight has lit up the long grasses.