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.