Today it was almost 30 degrees in our garden and still no rain! I think this is the driest it's been at this time of year since we arrived and we're watering everything by hand - it's a bit time consuming but has to be done.
Some of you will know already that we were worried about our oak tree last year and had to get the tree surgeon in again after a huge branch just fell off. His prognosis wasn't good. Things were looking even worse in very early spring as all the new leaves that appeared, went brown, shriveled up and died then blew off. We thought that was it. However we spoke to someone we know who owns Wyldewood and he said not to panic as there was one very late frost and with a bit of luck that was all that had happened. Thankfully the oak is now flourishing again.
The veggies are all coming along brilliantly.
I wish I had something that could do time lapse photography, as these beans were just out of the ground this morning, by the afternoon they'd grown over 4 cm! Amazing.
these are the scarlet runners - doing beautifully.
The elderflowers are pretty much ready to be picked to make cordial. I think we'll have to do that next weekend now as we've sort of run out of time today.
I was thinking of doing a little rain dance the other day but thought that might scare it off rather than encourage it....and elderflowers - did you plant them? What conditions do they like? How fast are they growing? Would like to plant some next planting season (hopefully it'll rain by autumn!)
ReplyDeleteWe didn't plant them they were here already, but they grow incredibly fast and you can grow them from cuttings. Ours are in the chicken run and form a hedge round the orchards so we have a lot. We're sub tropical with a couple of frosts a year and usually wet winters, they seem to thrive! We made champagne last year too. We've just been watching Hugh F-W and he made wine from gorse flowers - it looked amazing! We don't have any but our neighbour has loads...
ReplyDeleteYour oak tree is amazing. I hope it is going to be ok.
ReplyDeleteWe had rain for almost a whole night and whole day, but before that we'd had a week of days over 30. Your garden is looking fabulous, as always!
ReplyDeleteMelanie, I really hope so too, it was one of the reasons we bought our farm, Darroch means Oak in Gaelic.
ReplyDeleteRain! lucky you Cat, we've still had not a drop, skies are blue as blue today, which is lovely really, but a bit of rain over night would be nice!
You can have some of my gorse....I'd swap some for some elderflower cuttings but I think I'd be getting the better end of the bargain ;)
ReplyDeleteI made elderflower cordial for the first time last week and it's really yummy! Hope your's goes well Laura xx I missed the gorseflower programme but did spot the recipe on his website and thought i'd give it a try, i have 7 bottles of elderflower champagne just bottled and another bucket to go, so it'll have to wait until after that. Fingers crossed there are no explosions and it's as good as the cordial! xx
ReplyDeleteOnce we had some swan plants in pots in our one spare bathroom and we had some caterpillars on them and when they were about to become butterflies Terence set up his webcam to record what was happening. It was so cool to watch the butterfly come out. Unfortunately I don't think this would be practical for your beans though seeing as they are outside.
ReplyDeleteLea White
http://whitesinnz.blogspot.com/2009/01/to-witness-something-magical.html