cabbage white – Garden Gate Flowers

We Will Grow Them in the Raised Beds…

We have moved beyond the longest day of the year, although for anyone in quarantine, or shielding, there have been a lot of “longest days” in the past few months. Not that everyone is exacly paying any heed to what is required of us any more as the new conscience-free, apology-avoiding “Dominic’s Law” seems to have been adopted by large swathes of the population as they congregate in anti-social distancing on the streets and beaches.

Despite this, here in the devolved region of the Midlife Garden we remain cautious in easing restrictions and feel that the ends are justifying the means. The PPE on the brassicas is remaining in place for the foreseeable future as we continue to register zero cases of Cabbage White caterpillar. But we have decided to comply with the Government’s pubs and restaurants policy with regard to opening up the nasturtiums. There will, no doubt, be a large spike in butterfly larvae numbers over the coming months in this sector of the garden economy, but that is our cunning plan: a sacrificial crop they call it, just don’t mention herd immunity, please. That is NOT the plan, or ever was, OK?

The PPE on the strawberries has been equally succesful with the first bowlful arriving this week. The blueberries are looking good too, happy in their world behind the curtain of netting, but will need a little longer to ripen. And elsewhere we have had the first potatoes, sugar snaps, and kale. There was some concern at the lack of social distancing between the sugar snaps and some errant self-seeded sweet peas, but we have decided to turn a Barnard Castle eye to this and wait until 4th July when, if our reading of the regulations is correct, the sweet peas will be able to be next to the sugar snaps, so long as they are wearing a bandana over their faces, have the same middle name and remember to remain unrepentant at all times.

The heart-warming success story of the garden, so far, has been the courgettes. After several weeks in ITU they have been applauded on their recuperation from frost damage and have produced their first (albeit pencil-thin) mini marrow. Those courgettes are clearly fighters, as we have said before. Let’s hope they do not follow the lead of some of our courgette-headed brethren and carry that fight onto the beaches.

Garden Surgery

More rain for the garden at the end of August meant the flowers were looking battered and the veg bedraggled too. So we did some more structural maintenance on the trees and larger shrubs in between the downpours.

The boomerang bed came in for some trimming, as – quite randomly it seems – a whole branch of the Indian Bean Tree (Catalpa) simply died for no apparent reason. One day it was healthy, with flowers just blooming – the next day it just withered. Amputation of the dead limb was the clear solution. While I was at it I gave the shrubs underneath it a hair cut too as they were beginning to overcome the Catalpa – although I don’t think the branch died through overcrowding from some jumped up shrubs.

Elsewhere I tidied up other stuff in the drive and I even managed to get JB Jr to hack and prune the Cotoneaster at the front so we still have a room with a view. He loathes the task, but I reckon his youth and height qualify him far better to do the job than his slipped-disc-cartilage-deficient father.

Down the veg patch the battle still rages with the caterpillars. An acquaintance the other day proudly announced that she did not believe in killing the Brassica browsing thugs, and said that her plants would survive intact with happy butterfly larvae. We do not hold with such do goody good liberal-minded hippy shit. Mrs B takes it as personal affront that anyone other ourselves is eating our plants so the other day we donned the gloves of doom and squished caterpillars till we had both broken the three dart maximum of ONE HUNDRED AND EIIIIIGHTEEE! We thought our cabbages, purple sprouting and brussels would be much better off without nearly four hundred predators munching their leaves. The only misjudgment we think we made was Mrs B wearing a white shirt to squish green caterpillars.

(I can see this being the next washing powder commercial….Anguished housewife to camera: “but how can I get squashed caterpillar stains out of my husband’s white t-shirt?”).

Giving the Bean Tree more room to breathe

Dead Air

Retaking territory after the weeds — Re-taking territory after the weeds

It rained yesterday. Bucketloads. Which was a good thing. Not in the “It’ll do the garden good” kind of way, because the garden is plenty wet enough thanks. No – it gave us the excuse to stay indoors and watch the battle of Good v Evil which was how the World Athletics Championships had been billed. Having had the brilliance and farce / tragedy of the women’s Heptathlon as Ennis-Hill ruled supreme and Johnson-Thompson fouled out (tragically? stupidly?) we had the Bolt v Gatlin race for the soul of athletics. The whole eternal battle thing was a little over the top, but it was pleasing to see the Good Guy beat the one wearing the metaphorical black stetson. Usain rode off with gold on his golden Palomino.

After that breathless excitement it was time turn to our own Midday in the garden of Good and Evil. There is plenty of decent stuff in the garden – such as my nice new fruit cage that I have manufactured out of the twisted remains of the gazebo that took a battering in the June gale, and the flowers that we planted are still blooming: Cosmos are brilliant, Rudbeckia tall and proud, Gladiolae still glad to be gay and Veronica small but perfectly formed.

There are plenty of veg, if one looks hard enough: courgettes ranging from petite to XXXXL, green beans, runner beans and dwarf french (although the climbing french for some reason have simply whithered on the cane). Plenty of potatoes, summer psb, and spicy, peppery salad leaves.

But there is still a constant battle of Good and Evil here too. The cabbage whites have managed to lay their eggs and we now wage war with the caterpillars which have stripped some plants clean. The leeks which we planted before we went away, were razed to the ground within 24 hours so we raised the barricades for them and they seem to have recovered. The lawn (well, grassy area) has more patches than a quilters’ convention with splodges of bare earth dotted all over showing a constant reminder of mole activity. And the roses have once again been given the sign of the black spot with death and decay to follow. Not even the greenhouse is immune where the ants nests are abundant despite the ants always seeming to take to the air (I thought they all flew on one day and that was it?). I am not sure how much damage they actually cause, but surely they cannot be helping?

But despite the dead air of the greenhouse there is still some promising news with the first two tomates finally making it to the table – about three months after the gardening giants of Galhampton had started cropping their wonder plants. Ours will taste all the better for the wait – or at least that is how I try to argue it with Mrs B.

Ahaaa Jim Lad – the curse of the Black Spot!

Runner Beans running well, French Beans appear to have raised the white flag

Against a Dark Background

August flew by in a whirl of picking, podding and freezing as the beans, tomatoes, peppers and others all grew to maturity and beyond. But behind the fecund abundance, the menace of death and destruction lurked in the garden.

I have commented on the battle with interlopers such as moles and caterpillars, and our combined efforts to reduce the numbers of said assailants. But more desirable garden visitors have not always managed to avoid the dangers of the garden environment.

For example, one morning as I was heading out I saw a squab (young pigeon) walking up the yard – lost, and flightless, it seemed to have fallen from a nest somewhere. I did not have time to do anything with it, leaving it to its own – or its parents’ – devices. But later in the day Fudge and Ella (our newest recruit to the Garden Home Guard), were discovered with said squab in mouth. Claire managed to “rescue” the flightless victim, but only in time to give it the last rites. The bird was still breathing, though, and as the Old Man pulled up after his morning shoppping and gossip trip, she asked if he would complete the job for her.

Well, by the time he had decided on how to get out the of car, what to do with his shopping, managed to select which pocket to put his car keys in, walked five paces towards the bird, formed a plan on exactly HOW he might despatch it (wring its neck? Swing it against a brick wall? or perhaps take an air rifle shot at it?), the bird had decided “sod it” and quietly slipped off this mortal coil out of sheer boredom. Death by exasperation was the coroner’s verdict.

We have had a plethora of woodpeckers in the garden this summer – Green and Great Spotted varieties. I could hardly turn a corner without having some noisy fledgling flying up from the grass, yaffling at me for disturbing it. Great Spotteds spend more time in the trees (and the bird feeders) but can get confused by greenhouses, as one found out to its cost. I guess it just flew into the glass and broke its neck. A shame. “Beautiful plumage”, to quote Monty Python.

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — The two feathered salute

The garden is not only a dangerous place for wildlife. It is for domestic life too. The hens have a new potential predator in the form of our new, supposedly soft-mouthed, retrieving hound, Ella. She managed to get into the chicken enclosure the other day and had a magically entertaining minute running after the squawking hens before I managed to pull her away from Foghorn Leghorn (our best layer). The hen remained lifeless as I took Ella inside, and still did not move when I returned. She did eventually get back on her feet, and remains fine, though her tail feathers now form a rather tell-tale V shape – as if to give a two fingered salute to any passing labrador puppies.

IMAG0267 — Caterpillar – and the remains of the meal

In terms of deliberate, more calculated exterminations, we have continued with the annual cull of cabbage white caterpillars, which have had a field day (or rather a full summer campaign) on our caulis, cabbages and brussels, not to mention the curly kale. An enthusiastic expert on TV last night was commenting on what a brilliant year it has been for butterflies. He was excited about the Orange Tips and Red Admirals, but I think their numbers are dwarfed by the sheer density of Cabbage Whites in my veg patch. It is a grim and stinky job picking caterpillars and squeezing them like runny toothpaste. But oddly satisfying.

And what of the moles? A chance conversation with a member of the underground arms trade gave me access to a weapon of mole destruction and the means to – literally – blow them up. I thought he was joking at first, but when he explained that this piece of kit, entitled “Le Detaupeur”, (“satisfait ou rembourse”) was imported from France I thought it probably did what he said. And sure enough it does. I set it up with a bucket over the top and some chicken wire around it to prevent the dogs getting too close and after a couple of nights (and a re-set in case I had not got it right) came out one morning to find both bucket and detaupeur blown out of the ground. (The voice of Michael Caine echoed in my head here – “it’s only s’posed to blow the bloody doors off”).

The mole was – I assumed – dead, but I was not prepared to excavate the area to find out. But I need not have worried: five days later, our adorable puppy decided she would do some digging and I only latterly realised where it was that she was working the soil. She successfully uncovered the decapitated mole – which I disposed off beyond her reach. So moles need to look out – we have now tapped into the murky world of the international arms trade.

And no UN mandate or weapons inspector is going to help them.

The Day Ella arrrived – Claire’s birthday

“Who me? What mole?” (note mole fluff on chin)

First dog show – 2nd placed in “cutest puppy” (we wuz robbed)

Swallow fledglings..learning hang the washing

An Awesome Wave of Veg

The garden is really hitting it straps now. With warm / hot sunshine and every day another jamspangler, it has been so easy to keep the weeds under control. The key has been keeping the veg and borders alive.

While prophylactic action against rabbits and caterpillars continues with sweeps of cabbages and brussels by gardener (result: several hundred eggs and 20 caterpillars destroyed) and hunting of vermin by dog (result: nil rabbits, nil moles, one hot and bothered dog) might ensure a good winter harvest, the real work is about the summer harvest that is getting into full swing.

And what a glut. Sugar snap peas, mangetout, purple sprouting, broad beans and continued salad leaves are all bumper crops. Yesterday we picked our first tomatoes and cucumber. We even had our first two blueberries (bushes a 50th birthday present from the Ladies of the Lane last October) and our autumn bliss raspberries provide just enough for a daily summer cereal accompaniment. And today we picked our first handfuls of runner beans and french beans with plenty on the way.

In addition, the concerns voiced to me by Piers and Hazel about the number of courgettes that we might have to contend with are being realised, as all the plants look like they are coming well and truly into blossom with courgettes turning from small pencils to police truncheons almost overnight. So we will shortly be entering the storage phase of the Smallway harvest season when I remember parents spending hours peeling, shelling, podding and slicing veg to be blanched in vats of boiling water to then be cooled, bagged and frozen.

Thundery Showers forecast... — Thundery Showers forecast…

But we are looking to be a little more creative with what we have and are thinking of making “ready meals” based on our excess produce. So if anyone has a favourite courgette, runner bean or french bean recipe they would like to share with us we would love to see them. Preferably with garlic and shallots included as I am not convinced I will be able to store my home-grown for too long. But I did manage, after a little trial and error, to plait them reasonably effectively. Even Verity seemed quite impressed which is high praise as she is still scarred by the memory of going to school with wonky pig tails after my ham-fisted efforts – not that anyone would too pleased to wear their hair like my shallots and garlic.