The Dry Garden

The weather remains hot and almost totally dry with very little rain – so little, in fact, that when it happens it’s instantly absorbed and evaporated and makes no difference to the garden.

The marrow plant has 5 marrows, each about 8” long. Most of the flowers produced by the marrow plant are gobbled up by the deer, so few fruits are produced. The butternut squash plants produce plenty of flowers, but as yet no fruit, due again, of course, to the deer’s’ dining habits. Perhaps I should just take a leaf from the deer’s book and use the flowers in a salad, or even make a nice corn flour batter and after clipping the flowers fry them crisply in sweet virgin olive oil. Somehow though, I think I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope, by and by, for some flowers to be spared and few butternut squash to grow. Last year’s crop tasted far better than any purchased in a supermarket.

The lawn remains more dead than alive looking although I know it will come back lush and green, in time. I felt sorry for the birds today, pecking away at the dry hard lawn, so I threw on to the centre of the lawn an apple, a tomato, and 3 plums, watching carefully. I was surprised to see a male blackbird chose, not the apple or the plums, but went straight for the tomato and made a feast of it – delightful to watch.

The plums are growing well in the Victoria tree, but it is always a battle between the wasps, the birds, and us to see who does best. The conference pear tree has been great this year due to the bees moving into the blue tit box. The family of blue tits moved out and the babies are back in the garden now, and divide their time between the peanuts, the fat balls, and the pears on the tree. I think they will be the winners of the pear tree fruit this year.

Annoyances: Cancer and Burrs

Oncologist appointment at Addenbrookes, followed by planning scan for radiotherapy.

Traveling as usual the pretty A10, with its patchwork of fields stretching out from each side, with occasional villages and small towns to pass through.

It is a mainly straight road, with just one stretch of dual carriageway, stretching almost all the way between the Harlow roundabout and the Braughing turning. Almost the entire journey is made so pleasant by the wild flowers which cover the verges, great armies of stately rose bay willow herb, climbing out of ditches, marching along straights and ascending banks verging the verges, they march together with armies of thistles, once stunningly purple, now fluffy-headed. The tall grasses have now turned golden in the warmth of the sun and with the lack of rain. The umbellifers now stand head and shoulders above the other flowers and are but seed heads now, but how magnificent they look, standing sentinel above the others. I love to squat down and photograph these monstrously large plants, against a clear blue sky.

A walk by the river yesterday evening, showed the burdocks with their enormous leaves and round prickly offerings, drying on the plants, not only in readiness to procreate but also patiently waiting for dogs with their furry coats to pass by, each prickle on the burr has a little hook on the end and it is very effective, many country walks have ended with twenty minutes of burrs being picked off socks, trousers, sweaters and jackets; gardening gloves are best to be worn when doing this as the hooks also like to engage with skin.

Better even than skin is dog fur, for many years we had shelties (Shetland sheepdogs) their beautiful long fur was exactly right for the burrs and our four-legged friends were sometimes so entangled by these prickly seeds that it became impossible for them to walk, and we would stop and have to spend ages trying to free them. At last I wised up, after many years, and took a small pair of scissors on walks for the worst ones were always caught up in the soft fur where the leg meets the body; it must have been so unpleasant for our little friends – who were so frolicksome and happy when released.

Roadside Verges in July

Off to Addenbrookes for early appointment.

Stately spires of purples and rose-pink rose bay willow herb grew in sweeping swathes along the roadside verges, side by side with tall, purple prickly thistles, nearby nestling close to the ground and shining brightly upward are immense patches of the brightest yellow tom thumb, here and there meadowsweet grows, and I wish we could stop and I could press my face into its flowers and drink in its pleasant sweetness. No wonder in medieval times it was used by cottagers to strew on the earthen floors of their dwellings.

The grass on all the verges is now straw-coloured and in places has died away to expose the stony ground it grows upon. Vetch grows bushlike, two feet high and more flowers than leaves, a few pale mauve, but mostly white, pinky-mauve mallow flowers lay mostly along the ground, just lifting their pretty heads as if showing the sun their faces. Here and there, bright red poppies, the same shade as my arterial blood, drift alongside the road and sit pleasantly among the other flowers. We have had many hot days now and on every one of them the grass-snakes are to be found in and around the pond. As I write, I suddenly realize there are no fish and no newts, frogs or tadpoles to be seen, of course they have made fine meals for the snakes. I would like to think lurking among the stones a few have managed to survive, frogs and toads will have spawned and left the pond, but of course, tiny toadlings, froglets and baby newts will have been eaten by the snakes.