My poor drought ridden garden, warts and all

These are the only photos I took last week during my after chemo week. I wasn't very inspired to take photos really and only took these for my records, never meaning to post them - if I had I'd have used my dslr for better photos, but you get the picture. 

It's been a dryish spring and dry summer looking back, it's just that you don't really notice how little rainfall is falling say during April and May, unless it's actually hot and the soil starts to really dry out. It wasn't hot back then so I didn't notice, but I do keep a record of every mm of rain that falls in my garden and whilst we had a very good amount of rain mid June, it was the only rain in June. But when I dug up spuds two weeks later they were completely dried out! I've had the worst case of scab with the later varieties of spuds that I've ever seen, but they have not been watered at all for obvious reasons. Normally I set up a seep hose along the top of the ridges after having earthed them up twice, but this year that was impossible. Never mind, after peeling the spuds will be fine.

So here are a few photos after my garden gave up the ghost during the hot days earlier last week - I got to the point I didn't want to go outside any more as it was too depressing for me to see my precious plants drooping or turning black or crispy. :-(

But happy news, we had 17mm rain over two days; that's but a drop in the ocean compared to what we really need to benefit trees and deeper rooted plants, but for now the garden looks a lot happier, and I have 7,000 litres of stored water so I will start hosepiping again today to try to keep them from drooping and scorching again, as the weather is due to be in the high 20s and low 30s again later this week.

The grass is always worst out in the open here, in the distance by
the chicken sheds it stays green much longer which I can only assume
is more depth of soil at the top of the slope. Shade helps too.

My pathetic Buddleia - it is always sad and droopy during summer
and only flowers for about a week and never has butterflies on it.
This year it is the worst I've ever seen it.

Even most of the weeds have died off here
(although they are only in hibernation and will be back in the spring).

However Wild Carrot aka Queen Anne's Lace loves this time as it
must have a deep tap root and this is its hour of glory,
likewise the low growing Knapweed in the lawn. Did you know you can
mow Knapweed and it will happily bloom low down in the lawn?

About a seven year old Forsythia which droops all summer long too.

The driest I've ever seen the field at the bottom of my garden - the cows are
moved around over several fields so never stay in one field for more than about a week.

Silver Birch have shallow roots so always turn orange and drop their leaves
during any dry spell. The Poplars round here are all turning yellow too.

Now a few warts and all pics of my veg patch - even though the last post contained photos of flowers only, a few people mentioned how beautiful my garden was. No! It was only the flowers, the veg patch is a complete mess now and so is some of the garden which needs a lot of pruning and hacking back and general tidying. But the flowers have perked up after the rain (this was before). And the flowering plants here have been watered about once a week, otherwise they would be dead; as it is, many annuals are very stunted.

Spuds in the foreground but taken over by self seeding flowers
and one of my 'wildflower' strips by the fence
with more flower beds in the garden beyond.

The Pollinator Meadow became way too overgrown and I couldn't cope
with it any more but there are a few areas with flowers still and
the Mirabilis (bottom right) has started blooming. Might attract some
night feeding moths as the flowers are heavily scented and open at night.

Mess yes! Foreground are strawbs that need taking out but are
swamped with bindweed, the middle patch is where we took out the
spring brassicas but what was left were self seeded Heartsease Violas,
now going over, and to the right are the Sunflowers in the next photo.
Some veggies in the furthest plot.

I've never had such drooping Sunflowers before, and it's surprising because these
are self seeded which usually makes them tougher. But maybe the problem is that
there are too many of them in a smallish space.

No problems with the courgettes, apart from a few lower leaves with
mildew, but that's normal. They are veg so they get watered regularly.

Round the garage side of the house where the aspragus grows.
There's a bit of grass still growing but the wildflowers are
happy - Hawkbit (yellow flower/fluffy seedheads)
which the insects love, and wild poppies.

My poor Forest Pansy has turned all autumnal. We have watered
but really can't do more than a watering can or equivalent per week.

Wildflower lawn - a few days after the rain and this area is greener
because it's down the bottom of the slope and to the left is
the new sand filter bed area which we have had to water, and around
the dahlias it's quite shaded and always stays green!

Finally apropos of absolutely nothing, here's an interesting wasp
which is the only insect photo I took during this time!

I got out of the house for the first time in 10 days yesterday (for a hospital appt unfortunately, nothing interesting!) and was struck by how autumnal the trees look during our journey. This is the effects of dryness - it's about six weeks too early for autumn colours to start! 

I have not read anyone's blogs for more than a week due to chemo side effects which I am only just crawling out of - I'll try to catch up but excuse me if I don't comment on all your posts! I do look at blog posts via my Feedly feed, even if I only have time/energy to look at the photos. :-)

I'll be doing a health update soon which I'll keep separate as I've a lot to talk about as it's near the six months since surgery mark now! Hard to believe.