21st -27th August 2025
New Start
Flowers despite weeds and drought :)
It has been a difficult summer here with my Mum’s continued ill health and return home here from hospital – though weedy and drought ridden we did have veg and we did have flowers for the table when we wanted and more fruit than we could give away – and that is all I could ask of my little neglected patch of ground this year – and the rabbit fencing worked 🙂 There have been a couple of deaths in the orchard – my Damson tree and one of the plums – both with silver leaf and die back so there is work to do out there this winter. As I write we are getting the first good rain for weeks – this part of Dorset is still very very dry and no one cut second cut silage from the burnt out pastures = the fields are laid up now in the hope of a last minute cut before winter – but we will see how that pans out.
Crazy Grass Much Rhubarb Time…
1st Fields Cut…
So it starts. Silage teams trundling about morning noon and night – and fine weather for it!
Kite’s Orchard is ‘out of bloom’ now and I need to make an inspection of the fertilisation – a quick glance says some cider trees and my second favourite ‘Hoary Morning’ have not pollinated and neither have the ‘Williams’ pears but the Damsons and Plums are laden – the big pear tree has more fruit set than I have seen for years and the cherries -not that we will get any of them – and the rest of the eaters and cookers look well set for a good season.
As it is unlikely I will be able to really make much cider this year the fact they are having a year off isn’t an issue – I have yet to wade into the neck high grass ( I am short) of Moon Cat Orchard next door to see the Dabinets and Kingston Blacks etc
The ‘under grazers’ – my twelve geese- are ‘a laying’ like mad – and as usual I wish they could all have big families to bring up and help with the mowing but a pair of ravens near by has put a stop on free range poultry breeding here for a while.
Now the trees are not in bloom I will spray the large crop of docks that has sprung up this year around the pipe work we laid last year – geese don’t eat weeds and my mower won’t go under the mature trees on medium root stock!
The soft fruit department looks like it has recovered from the savage prune – I didn’t kill anything anyway! All have new growth for next year and those few branches I left long are laden – enough for a few pots of jam anyway.
And The Rhubarb?
Well it grows well here! Came from a bit that was growing where Kites Orchard is now that was the original garden – I dug it up and planted it in the ‘new garden’ (as it was then) so it seems quite fitting it is bursting out of it’s own accord during the gardens hiatus 🙂
Crumble Anyone? 🙂
Once And Future Veg’ Plot…
Mowed…
Missing my garden – last year it was laid waste by the ‘Open House Surgery’ and I had thought it would have been re rabbit and stock fenced by now between winter ‘s end and lambing but with husband’s knee op’ and the huge amount of work in the house we are putting this off till the Autumn.
I will spray it off and try and re dig the beds, and make some where to chuck the muck heap. 🙂
When we put the fence back up there will be another area included where the old septic tank was and our soak away so that I may be able to get a polly tunnel at some point near the bottom of the veg plot or a small greenhouse… I can dream.
I think I will get into the shipping container where my books are and dig out Fork To Fork – Monty Don and some of his other books – may be a River Cottage or two and my trusty early ones in the much thumbed Expert series – trouble is too much ‘input’ and I will want some more pigs and start thinking about sausages and the old pig pen needs refencing too and is unlikely to make it up the Honey Do list any quicker than the veg plot so… 🙂
At least I can sit in the garden and dream this year 🙂