In search of a romantic acorn

 

An assortment of photos, mostly dog walks, with a random Van Gogh thrown in for good measure. The middle boy and I went to see the big exhibition at the National Gallery. It was completely magical. 

As suspected, I grew too many chillies. They are in bags in the freezer, awaiting the return of the middle boy from uni. I'm not sure I'd bother again. I sowed them in January and harvested the chillies over ten months later. It was a lot of work and it turns out they're too hot for most of the people here, including me. 

It was quite fun to see them develop though. The pimiento de padron plants were 2 metres tall and had loads of chillies on them. Maybe they are less hot if you pick them sooner. Mine were hot and they're supposed to be a mild chilli. They're the fatter ones in the picture. The long slender ones are Joe's Long. They're pretty good. A smaller plant, with very long chillies. 

I have been in search of an acorn over the past few weeks, and there isn't a single one to be found. I had an idea to grow some little oak seedlings, and I thought it would be nice to have acorns from a tree I walk under every day with the dog. A romantic acorn, if you will. Except, this year is most decidedly not an acorn year. I have searched under pretty much every oak tree in a mile radius and all I found was one bad one. 

I looked it up, and apparently some years are like that. And some years are bumper years. Most years are somewhere in between. Oaks are wind pollinated and if there is a wet or cold spring, then sometimes it just doesn't happen. 

I do have some silver birch seeds which I'm going to have a go with. They are a bit trickier to germinate and need complicated things like stratification, or a period of cold in the fridge. Anyway, I'm going to give it a go. They're very good for wildlife, second only to oak for the number of species they support I think.

I planted some tulips and fritillaries in the grass a couple of weekends ago. It was a devil of a job. I know that Monty insists you need to throw them randomly across the space so that they look natural, but I was worried I'd miss one and the dog would eat it, so I didn't do that. 

As it was, he was intrigued by the idea of me burying things and dug up a tulip bulb and ate a bit of it before I could stop him. It was only a very small tulip, and he only had a bit, but they are toxic to dogs and it was a tense 24 hours, I can tell you. I knew it wasn't enough to do him serious harm, but it could have had an effect if you catch my meaning.

The next day I was sat working hard at the table and I saw out of the window a magpie come along and pull out the plug of earth from a hole, whip out the bulb, throw it across the grass and on to the next one. I mean, why? So it's anyone's guess whether anything will come up. If they do, they will no doubt be in some awkward grid formation and not stylish naturalistic planting. 

I bought some crocuses as well, but I'd had enough of crawling across muddy grass by that point, so they're in pots. I am waiting for something to come along and dig them up as well, to be honest.

How are things are your end? All good I hope. Let me know if you've seen an acorn this year, I'm intrigued to know whether it's a local shortage or more of a national thing. It's got to be disappointing for the squirrels. CJ xx