Monday 24 May 2010

Hot enough

comfrey

Suddenly it's summer, or as close to a perfect 3 days of summer sunshine as we could hope to have. It's not going to last but for the moment the warmth and light is very pleasant and cheering, even if it does mean extra watering duties.

In order to save on our water bills we've moved a watering trough to the vegetable patch and will fill this with water pumped from the stream as necessary. It saves on the metered water and it also saves me some weary treks backwards and forwards with watering cans from the tap to the field.

Power tools are still broken which means some short cuts are likely to be taken with planting this year, not least because manual digging in this heat is suicide. I have peas and beans now just waiting for their chance to stretch out into the soil and I hope to get them in over the next 48 hours in time for expected rain on Wednesday. I will dig small holes for them instead of fully cultivating the ground and pop some chopped comfrey into each hole to act as a food and moisture reservoir while they establish.

comfrey hedge

My helpers have left early as they were offered work that paid and that was something they couldn't refuse. In their time here quite a lot was achieved, with demolition and bramble removal some of the most important tasks undertaken. I was sorry to see them go but very thankful for the help they gave.

willing workers

The cats have slowed down some of their carnage amongst the rodents as the heat is almost too much for them. They've become particularly good at avoiding being photographed but if I can sneak up on them quietly enough in the next few days the next post might be a Cat Diary catch up. It seems an awfully long time since last year when they were still kittens.

crow in the woods

4 comments:

Patrick said...

It's been summer weather in Amsterdam too. It's a nice change from the cold spring we've had so far. I have to admit however, I'm kind of hoping it'll cool off a bit so I can get some gardening done...

Robert Brenchley said...

Too hot in Birmingham as well. I was supposed to be doing some digging today but I couldn't face it.

ICQB said...

It's been cool here in northern Ohio, USA, but this week will be very warm.

Talk about hot, I used to have a small vegetable garden when I lived in the desert in New Mexico. The kids were tiny then, and after playing in their little, plastic kiddie pool, we'd dump the water out into the garden.

Looking back, it's the most favorite garden that I ever grew, and it never gave me any troubles.

Catofstripes said...

The hot weather came... and went again. Luckily today it's back for a bit.

Except that I was going to earth up the spuds. Never mind, shall sit and enjoy it. Rain forecast for tomorrow.