In the garden: the good, the bad and the ugly

blueberries

pea flower

grapes

raspberries

tayberries

Fruit is a fickle thing isn't it.  One year there's a bumper harvest, the next, almost nothing.  Or in the case of my pear and plum trees, actually nothing.  

A grape vine that grows by the back door has buds on it this year, after two years of just leaves.  Although the leaves were in a league of their own, a whole green bin full at least twice during the summer, as if the plant put all of its energy into foliage and had nothing left for grapes.  It's a Lakemont Seedless, and really delicious.  I wish I'd chosen seedless varieties for all of the vines I planted because the grapes I have tend to be small and the pips tend to be large and plentiful.  It's not a good combination.

There are absolutely masses of blueberries, after a year where a hungry blackbird family ate the few that there were.  I quite enjoyed seeing the blackbird parents bringing their big blackbird chicks down to feast on the blueberries though, I didn't begrudge them at all.  We shall see if I'm that indulgent this year.

Apples are forming, although it seems like only five minutes ago that there was blossom.  Peaches were forming, but now most of them seem to have mysteriously disappeared.  The golfers and footballers are denying all knowledge of it.

And so on to the bad.  Apples again, but the foliage is curling up and underneath there's quite a blackfly infestation.  

I sometimes spray with a little dilute Ecover washing-up liquid to deter them.  I'll probably wait and see how extensive the problem gets.  This particular apple (a Worcester Pearmain) has had aphid trouble before.  I'm not sure if it's particularly prone to it or whether it's shadier spot doesn't help.

And now my epic fail of the year.  At least I hope this is it and there's nothing worse still to come.  Strawberries.  Sigh.  We do so love strawberries here, but something has gone horribly wrong.  I potted up these runners from the allotment last year, and then planted them out at home.  They haven't thrived at all, they are just utterly miserable.  

You can see in the last picture that just one (out of eighteen) looks healthy.  Here it is next to one of the others.

I really don't know what the problem is.  The soil at home is very poor, and I wonder if at some stage some manure that had weedkiller in it was added to the beds.  Quite often if I plant something it just turns yellow and completely stops growing.  I find this particularly with cucumbers and courgettes, which I only ever grow at the allotment now.  I think I may dig up the strawberry bed, take the top few inches of soil off and replace it with some new topsoil.  Although it's possible that the plants have a virus.  Anyway, it makes me cross every time I walk past them.  I know I should probably have taken all the flowers off in the first year, but I find that kind of thing really hard to do.  

Elsewhere there are a few healthy plants, and a few fruits starting to ripen.  A few garden beasties have caught the scent of them though.

Let's go back to the good again.

Herbs, in the biggest boy's raised bed, doing not too badly.  And more fresh green salad leaves than you can shake a stick at.  Rocket, mustards, sorrel, Greek cress, pea shoots, radicchio and all sorts of lettuce.  I never get this successional sowing malarchy quite right, it's all happened at once again.  

The tomatoes are recovering for the most part from the cold unfriendly spring.  Outside tomatoes are always a lottery so I never have very high expectations.  So far so good though.  

And look, look what else I have...

Carrots!  Teeny, tiny, actual carrots.  It's sad that the guinea piggie isn't still around to see them.  Really, they were for her.  And some celery I have as well, she would have loved that.  I shall have to find a small boy to eat it all now instead.

And finally the ugly.  Maybe you remember the perfection that was my hosta a few weeks ago?  Now they are hideous rags.  I think I shall put them in the front (gravelly) garden.  To be honest I just don't want to look at them any more.  I stand at the kitchen sink washing up, just staring at them.  Can't tear my eyes away.  I need something pretty to look at.  This is not it.

Just to take the taste away, I shall leave you with a strawberry.  

Perfection non?  I shall be eating it shortly.  Assuming of course that I get there first.

Stone and flowers

Thank you for all your birthday good wishes.  My nerves are of course in shreds courtesy of Nerf guns round every corner.  They are now banned for the half hour before bed, and also first thing in the morning.  Did I ever mention that I'm quite a quiet person?  And a lover of quiet.  With three boys of course there is little enough peace.  So I've drawn the line at Nerfs at dawn.  The boys are usually lovely and quiet first thing.  They like to sit and read or draw or do tranquil things.  Nerf has put an end to all of this.  If the early morning No Nerf Rule is breached I may have to get a lockable gun safe.  Although I love the mornings, I love the peace of the mornings.  And I had no idea that having a Nerf gun would require complete rearrangement of the furniture to form cover from incoming fire.  Order and quiet have been restored now, albeit temporarily, and I'm heaving a happy sigh.

Photos from beautiful Cirencester.  So many wonderful houses and so many lovely flowers at this time of year.  The littlest boy goes round saying things like, "That garden is stunning mummy".  I've trained him well.  

Set fair

At last the gales have passed and the weather is set fair.  The greenhouse has been righted and cleaned and seedlings saved and planted out.  Pre-birthday excitement has reached fever pitch.  I told the middle boy earlier to be nice to the littlest boy by way of practice in readiness for the big day, when he would be required to be nice to him all day.  But apparently he is not able to do any niceness in advance, it will take all he has to do a single day.

Today I wrapped a football.  You would think that by now I would have got the hang of it wouldn't you.

There's probably a Youtube demonstration somewhere that shows you how to make exquisite little pleats and get it all looking delightful.  In the meantime I'm going with the "scrumple it all up with lots of sellotape" approach.

The littlest boy also asked for a feather and a pot of ink.  Not quite sure where that idea came from, Harry Potter maybe, but I baulked at the idea of him on the loose with a pot of permanent ink.  What about the carpets???  It's clearly a disaster waiting to happen.  And you know how disasters like to cluster around me.  So let's hope he's not crushingly disappointed.

At the top of the birthday list was an item that read, "Three Nerf guns".  One for the little man and one each for his adored brothers.  I tried to tell him that one would be more than enough.  He was quite sad.  Although he is desperate to shoot his brothers, to his great credit he wants them to be able to shoot him back.  Until of course he gets a Nerf bullet in the face, then it will all be off.  Anyway, his dear little face was so downcast I relented and ordered two more, and some spare ammo.  Imagine my surprise when my lovely friend sent three, count them three Nerfs that her boys had outgrown.  For a moment there was a very real danger of the whole household being armed and dangerous, with one to spare.  I managed to cancel the extra two.  But the birthday morning promises to be very lively.

The littlest boy is always quite a generous and kindly soul.  The other day he had a packet of new pencils that had times tables printed on them.  He sweetly and of his own volition gave one to each brother.  The next day before he got up, they were being ever so slightly mean about the pencils.  I said, "Don't be mean, he's so generous to you guys.  You wouldn't give him anything if you had a packet of something all to yourselves.  Honestly, he loves you so much, he's always hugging you and wanting to play with you and giving you things.  And when you're sad he tries to cheer you up and he hugs you and when you're away he misses you so much."  The eldest said, "And all the time we're plotting to flatten him."  (Joke of course, they adore him really.  They do.)

Baby birds and butterflies

Of course half term has gone flying by.  We walked up on Painswick Beacon and I found several common blue butterflies fluttering in a hollow.  Gorgeous.  I do love butterflies so much.  I wish I was better at identifying them.

We walked down to the river.  (Not on the same day!)  The tide looked low and you could see sandbanks waiting to trap unwary ships.  Most of the big ships have an experienced pilot to bring them up the river, it's not an easy place to navigate.

There's been a little recorder playing here, a bit of puzzling and of course lots of shinning up trees.  Also a huge amount of pre-birthday excitement.  We might burst!  We saw a peacock, such striking birds.  Big fat show-offs, but I sometimes get the impression there's not much going on up top.  Other than the thought, "Look at me, look at me, aren't I fine, oh yes I am, look!"

The last photo is a picture of a tree we can see from the house.  It has a crows' nest in it, maybe you can just make out one of the birds.  We've been watching it through binoculars.  It's much easier to see through binoculars than with the camera, you can see a baby occasionally, popping his head out and flapping.  The wind was horrendous the other morning, it was quite nerve wracking.  But the nest held of course.  Clever birds.  Our book says it's stuck together with mud.  And junior sat tight, with a little help from mum.  It's quite precarious, being a wild creature.  Tonight the wind is really picking up again.  My little greenhouse has just blown over.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and a chilli pepper are all tipped up inside.  We're watching the nest anxiously.  I hope they all hold on.

So now it's back to school and the final seven weeks before the summer holidays.  The calendar is full and I'm bracing myself for the onslaught of school summer activities.  Stay safe and dry, and have a good week.  CJ xx