Cold

It's almost a tradition to share a photo of this comfrey relative, the name of which always escapes me, at this time of year just to enjoy the beautifully curled flower spray. The original plant came from my late sister's garden just after she died so it's a much loved plant even though she called it a weed for popping up all over her patch.

It's so cold again. That brief five days of summer has disappeared into dreary windy chilly drizzle and despond, but spring has sprung and grimly the blossoms and new shoots are doing their best in the poor conditions. The previous cold snap seems to have provoked a lot of flowers on the fruiting plants but it's so cold and blowy again the pollinators aren't going to be able to do much.



The blueberries are really heavily loaded with flowers this year, if the weather was better I'd be looking at a bumper crop after a very disappointing one last year but all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that some berries will set. The little apple trees are looking lovely too.



This lavender seems to be as hard as nails, already in flower when we arrived back in March and loaded down with blooms now. I've forgotten the variety but have some idea it was described as Majorcan which makes it unexpectedly tough.

More seeds are planted including some ornamentals. I've got Castor Oil plants this year, poisonous they may be but they are striking, and coleus which for me are the plants of nostalgia as they were some of the first things I tried back in my teens.

The beans are planted but not coming up. They were started in pots outside on the bench and I think that was overly optimistic in the hot spell. I will almost certainly have to try again under cover or wait until it's properly warm. 

Listed

I took a similar picture of this apple, the Lamb Abbey pearmain, last year on 11th April. We're still 11 days behind but the unexpected burst of summer has given everything great encouragement. We had another massive thunderstorm last night so the best has passed for now but it's still sunny and warm today.

 
This year seems to be the year of things breaking. Various domestic machines overwintered badly and blew fuses and connectors when put back into service. Various parts for the tractor have snapped, deformed or simply fallen off and even the push along lawnmower has died, victim of something that went crunch underneath and ripped off cowling which deformed the blades. They don't last long and this one has done several years but more trouble and expense. The dandelions are pleased though.


We were feeling rather despondent over the number of early butterflies about. A good many overwintered Peacocks were here but only one Orange-tip and a single Brimstone, but I've spotted a few flutterbys about that need identification today and a moth that I think is new to me. I've asked on Twitter for help with ID as my usual resources are failing me.


Was very pleased to see the Copper Beech in new leaf. Last year it was blighted by a late frost and looked so damaged throughout the whole year that I feared something more sinister was affecting it but it looks beautiful dancing in its new crimson leaves so I think it's alright.

 
Not my favourite ornamental tree but this cherry does look well against a blue sky.


These are true potato seedlings, grown from seed I saved from the Sarpo Mira, Arran Victory and Bluebell potates last year. The way things are going with potato patch I may get more crop from these than the tuber sets which are still waiting for a home. Anyway, most of the seeds I've started are still at this delicate pre-pricking out stage.

Actually sown and hopefully growing, other seeds are waiting...

Tomatoes
GBK
Salt Spring Sunrise
Black Russian
Happy Day beefsteak (started in the UK and looking rather sad)
St. Pierre (bought in because I was so late)
Marmande (ditto)

Peppers
Nigel's Outdoor Green Chilli (from Realseeds)
Albertos Locoto (also Realseeds)
Nardello
Lamuyo Bell pepper (bought in)
a couple of sad little seedlings that have been munched by slugs and were from seed saved from a supermarket fruit.

Beans 
Riana's Corbiere beans
Hutterite soup
Ice Crystal Wax
Striped Bunch

Squash
Whangaparoa Crown
Sweet Dumpling
Blue Banana
Some courgettes missold to me by Fothergills last year - they were good strong growers and seem to be the only seed I have to hand but they were not Romanesco.

Peas
Raisin Capujiner
Salmon Flowered

Herbs
Neopolitan Basil
Mammoth Lettuce leaved Basil
Cinnamon Basil
Quillquina
Perilla (it actually came up, quite a result as it nearly always fails for me.)

A late spring for the broken hearted

Yesterday the weather finally became spring like. The leaves are just showing green on the beeches and the oaks are beginning to colour too but we are about two or three weeks later than last year. It's been so wet that even getting prepared for the season has been delayed which means it will be hard to catch up very well.



The buckeye is just bursting into glorious colour, hopefully there will be no frost to damage these tender leaves.



There is a fairly large herd of deer roaming around, we've seen them across the land in various places. They are probably pregnant does gathered in a group to avoid predators and give protection at a vulnerable time. Luckily they've not needed to strip my fruit trees this year which is a relief.



I have a new car, this rather cute little 4 wheel drive. I've needed it in the muddy conditions here.

But what of the garden I hear you ask...

It's there. I have seedlings finally, the polytunnel is recovered. The oca are being planted and beds dug, but it's such a struggle. This might be our last year here and the sorrow that causes affects everything. I'll try to document this last season as well as I can.

2018 est arrivé

 Winter came and went. Time was spent in the UK fretting about the future and making plans that have circular dependencies that seem unresolvable. Another Oca Breeders season started.

Now the time has come to fly south for the summer. Should be there soon, laden with seeds and plants and cats and hopes.

Friday the 13th

Summer which had gone too soon has returned briefly on the tail of Hurricane Ophelia which is pulling warm air up from Portugal and Spain to give us a few days of delightful weather. I'm making the most of it where I can and hoping that the late blooming oca will set some seeds before the frosts arrive.



Foraging today for sweet chestnuts produced a good haul. I'd take more but we rarely use them all and although I always mean to set the germinating leftovers out in the hedgerows I've yet to complete the task successfully. It seems wasteful. Perhaps I should cut out the storage in the middle and take some chestnuts straight to where I'd like another tree. We have three good trees in our hedgerow already but it wouldn't hurt to start another generation and the wood is good for fencing if the trees prove poor croppers.



Still lots of late butterflies including some Clouded Yellows.

Defunct

is my word of the day.

I just took a look at a blog I used to read, there was a new post. It was o.k. (Sorry Tim). Anyway while I was there I fell down a rabbit hole of blog lists, you know pick one at random, rinse, repeat. I ended up in a place where the message was basically "Did you miss me? I'll be back". It was dated in 2013.  My, how time flies, did you miss me?

Anyway, here are a few random pictures with captions. You can tell I've lost heart with it all because I'm hosting them on Blogger instead of the paid for hosting. No, you're stupid.

I was going to sort them into chronological order but honestly... anyway this is this year's chicken of the woods which has come back in the same place even though said place is almost sawdust now. If you're going to eat one, cook it well.

 

The veg garden is doing o.k. apart from the onions. I don't know why. Actually I do, I abandoned the patch to look after the oca which needed me more and they were swamped in weeds. The corn this year is Stowell's Evergreen which I'm hoping will be nice.

After the mice ate most of the sunflower seedlings I almost gave up completely. There are five plants left and this is the first and possibly the prettiest until the next one comes out.

The waterlily stock tub is looking rather lovely this year. We swapped a red lily for a pinky cream one which is flowering beautifully. This frog has made his home here along with newts, beetles and pond skaters. Nature is amazing.

Potatoes - these are the very first red Duke of York - are doing pretty well this year. Bluebell are absolutely fine but we probably won't grow them again. Mayan Gold are delicious but impossible to cook. The Ambo are large and good. Still to come Arran Victory, Sarpo Mira and some Prunelle. No doubt the blight will be along shortly.

Is the sun going down? Brexit has buggered up most things, my always tenuous grip on security is now dislodged again. Tune in again, there may be another episode later in the year.

Bank Holiday

We had the mother of all thunderstorms last night. Although I didn't know it, because we'd had to disconnect from the world to protect our equipment, the over-excited commentators of Twitter claimed it was the size of Wales and producing over 300 flashes of lightning a minute. It was, for a while, directly over the farm.

I'd like to show the pictures but we didn't take any in the end. Imagine a malfunctioning stage light coming on and off every 15 seconds with a background of gravel pit explosions.

After the first couple of hours of oohing and gasping we began to become bored and settled down to watch an episode of The Handmaid's Tale with a glass of the good whisky.

Clearing skies - it doesn't actually look like this today but it should.

Pictures are a bit random all over in fact. This has been an odd spring in the garden. The potatoes are doing well, most of the peas and beans are in and staked although the soya beans are being very slow to germinate. Mice had a go at my direct sown sunflowers, nipping off the fleshy seeds leaves and killing the seedling as a result. I've saved a few later germinating ones by covering with plastic bottle cloches and laying fresh mint leaves and stems along the row. So far, fingers crossed.

Forester moth

Cucurbits: I decided this year not to grow Whanga Crown squash so I could have an exciting mixed bag of colours and sizes, then totally got it wrong and ended up with Black Futsu and Muscade which apart from a slight size difference look almost identical. So I've hurriedly slung a few Sweet Dumpling into pots in the hope they'll come up in time. I've got lots of greenhouse cucumbers but the Petit Vert de Paris rotted in the pots on the first sowing and are now resown. The Armenian cucumbers are also looking good so far this year but I need to get the oca out of the polytunnel so the melons can move in.

There are more courgette plants than I needed but that's usually true. This year, two types, the Lebanese I grew last year and Romanesco because I can.

Bee!

Tomatoes: Have been so slow. The first batch suffered from mice and the second just aren't nearly as fast as I want them to be. I bought a few supermarket plants to help things along, two Marmande which are outside (at risk of blight but they do so much better if it can be avoided) and a St. Pierre which I was unfamiliar with but seems to be a popular French sort. Waiting to be planted out a lot of Roma and for the greenhouse, Black Russian, Costoluto Fiorentino, Gezahnte Bührer-Keel, Scotland Yellow, a couple of Tigerella from an old pack of seed and some Salt Spring Sunrise, again very old seed that I'm hoping to renew my stocks from.
   

Sooty Copper

Alliums: Most of the onion sets are doing o.k. but some of the garlic has rust already. I've multiplied up the walking onions from virtual extinction, found some Welsh onions and repatriated them from scrubland and moved Babington leeks and Elephant garlic back into the main patch. So that's all good.

Have sweetcorn and yacon still to plant out. And there will be more...

Ox-eye daisy and insect