Interlude
A week or two back, while I was revising for my final gardening exam, I took a break out in the garden. This is what I noted down before turning my mind back to Weeds, Pests & Diseasess:-
Monday 4th July 2011
The garden never ceases to enthrall and frustrate. Just a week ago, I went to the top of our plot to look at the reducurrants, spurred on by the copious berries resplendent on a friend's bushes in Staffordshire. I have just one rather pathetic offering, but it was full as it will ever be with berries just the week before. I curtsied to my pruning efforts in February. Yet returning to view the harvest, with reducurrant jelly in mind, I was dismayed to see the whole lot stripped. Not a berry left. Pigeons, the buggers. I made a note of it for my pests & diseases paper. P for Pigeon, P for Pest.
Picking myself up from my disappointment, I was pleased to see that the raspberries were flourishing. I picked and ate and enjoyed, and even found some in the hedge alongside the main lawn. How on earth did they get there? Pigeons I presume. I suppose they have their uses.
As I strolled back towards the house the delphiniums were filling the herbaceous border with an inky blue of startling intensity, while purple Nepeta released her minty, musky scent underfoot. Roses of red, yellow, pink and white - all shades and shapes and tones; aphids gathering, rocket rocketing, cabbages struggling, bees buzzing; wasps munching anything wooden for their nests God knows where; a dead bird, a decapitated rabbit; chicken shit and Alchemilla mollis everywhere. Tomatoes in the greenhouse; sweetpeas in pots; nettles and cleavers creeping through the borders, hungry for light and moisture. The birds sing, the midges fly, the grass grows.
Nature, in all her myriad forms, casting light on an otherwise dull day.
Monday 4th July 2011
The garden never ceases to enthrall and frustrate. Just a week ago, I went to the top of our plot to look at the reducurrants, spurred on by the copious berries resplendent on a friend's bushes in Staffordshire. I have just one rather pathetic offering, but it was full as it will ever be with berries just the week before. I curtsied to my pruning efforts in February. Yet returning to view the harvest, with reducurrant jelly in mind, I was dismayed to see the whole lot stripped. Not a berry left. Pigeons, the buggers. I made a note of it for my pests & diseases paper. P for Pigeon, P for Pest.
Picking myself up from my disappointment, I was pleased to see that the raspberries were flourishing. I picked and ate and enjoyed, and even found some in the hedge alongside the main lawn. How on earth did they get there? Pigeons I presume. I suppose they have their uses.
As I strolled back towards the house the delphiniums were filling the herbaceous border with an inky blue of startling intensity, while purple Nepeta released her minty, musky scent underfoot. Roses of red, yellow, pink and white - all shades and shapes and tones; aphids gathering, rocket rocketing, cabbages struggling, bees buzzing; wasps munching anything wooden for their nests God knows where; a dead bird, a decapitated rabbit; chicken shit and Alchemilla mollis everywhere. Tomatoes in the greenhouse; sweetpeas in pots; nettles and cleavers creeping through the borders, hungry for light and moisture. The birds sing, the midges fly, the grass grows.
Nature, in all her myriad forms, casting light on an otherwise dull day.
Comments
As for our garden, I spent an hour pulling out brambles today - result: brambles still largely in place; my arms, ripped to shreds.
Was going to write about my son going to Borneo on a youth summer camp - then Norway killings hit the news. Sort of knocked me sideways.
Agree about Norway too - so shocking and makes ones own problems seem trivial.