I'm back!

Just a quick post to say I'm back. I do have plenty of photos to sort through for some future posts but in the meantime here's a photo from our ferry journey over to England with the Isle of Wight in the distance. It's a long crossing during the day from St Malo to Portsmouth but we get a cabin so we can put our feet up and chill, and have a nap if we want. However there was a coach load of French school kids on the boat and despite repeated announcements on the tannoy that they should not run on deck, it seemed that when the sun came out they appeared to be running, jumping and leaping off the staircase from the top deck to the one below. Which just happened to be right above our cabin. So we were not pleased about that!!

Coming back was the first time I've ever felt one of these large ferries actually move with the waves. I woke during the night and couldn't believe the way the boat was moving about! I managed to stagger to the loo then lay down again hoping I would not get seasick (I do sometimes, but it seems quite random as to whether I get sick or not). Thankfully lying down it seemed more like swinging on a hammock in the breeze and when I finally woke again nearer St Malo the waters had calmed down. I did feel a bit zombie like the rest of the day (perhaps fitting as it was Halloween) because every time I sat down I felt I was still moving. I have no sea legs!

During our time away there was a storm which hit southern England and Brittany (don't know about other parts of France). Where we were staying at that point (Berkshire) there was little damage, though I heard that plenty of trees had come down in Somerset, which was where we were before, staying with my Mum. 

However it seems like it hit home harder as my beautiful weeping willow has lost a huge branch from high up in the tree and now it's looking a bit of an odd shape. Unfortunately one half of the branch is now half in, half out of the pond and when you see the next photo you'll realise it's not something we can exactly just pull out. The second photo (taken in pouring rain, yes I know I wanted rain but I haven't seen a butterfly for ages and I need my bug and butterfly fill before winter hits us properly!) shows the rest of the branch, unfortunately it was a forked one and is balanced on another branch about 20/30 feet up in the tree, over the water!

Also a neighbour's old apple tree has uprooted and landed half in the stream which bounds our two properties. But that's their problem to deal with!

Of course I got my priorities right as soon as I got home. Before unpacking I went to check out the orchard and spent about 2 hours collecting walnuts. The nice housesitters had picked up a whole big plastic bowlful for us which was kind, but I found tons more and still there are nuts on the trees. It's really important to me to get as many as possible this year as last year was a dreadful year and between the red squirrels and the bad harvest I managed to collect only about 50 total, instead of thousands.  So I'm pretty happy with this little lot, which are now spread out on newspaper all over my living room floor to dry! Next job, windfall apples, and I'm glad to say there are still tons of good eating apples on the trees too.

We did have a good time whilst away but I'll fill in more with the next posts.

Blight and a Colorado beetle

Beetle, singular. The first one spotted yesterday - ironically whilst my OH was spraying the maincrop spuds with Bordeaux mix against blight he spotted the beetle. Then whilst I was searching the leaves for more beetles, what did I notice had arrived overnight? Yes, blight! Hopefully the B. mix will help contain it as it is an excellent preventative and without it I wouldn't be able to grow tomatoes here at all, or any potatoes other than early ones, but my maincrop Desirees need more growing time to mature and they normally see us through to about April of the following year, so fingers crossed they will manage to reach full maturity.

Pretty potato flowers

Desiree spuds, with mange tout flowers in the background

I also noticed that the self seeded tomato, which appeared in the middle of a clump of self seeded violas, also had a touch of blight.

Self seeded tomato

The other tomatoes seem OK for now. They have all been sprayed once before but with showery weather and general humidity and cloudiness and south westerly winds, conditions are perfect for blight, and my neighbour has already had her potatoes blighted. The problem of course has been to be able to spray when there was not a risk of rain about to come and wash it all off!

So, what else is happening? Well the bought tomatoes seem fine, but on closer inspection they actually have very few tomatoes forming, and some of the flowers just haven't been pollinated. Now I thought tomatoes didn't need insect pollination but just need a bit of breeze or a slight shake to pollinate themselves if grown inside a greenhouse. Perhaps our incessant wind just plain blew that pollen away from the plant? *Puzzled of Brittany*

A variety called Fournaise. This plus Roma seem to be the
two tomatoes that have formed a reasonable amount of fruit.

These photos have been taken in the last 3 or 4 days and I'm happy to say that since our 3 day hot spell last week many of the veg which were steadfastly refusing to do a thing, such as the chillies and the tomatoes I grew from seed, have finally come to life. This photo is about 4 days old and everything has grown since then! The chillies are on the left of this picture, two rows of them that you can barely see here! It all looks a bit bare but will fill out, believe me. I have French marigolds growing between the tomato plants which will be big and bushy in about a month's time, huge self seeded multi headed sunflowers around the edges of this plot, parsley and calendula interspersed between them. At the back of this plot are my two courgettes which are finally growing and showing signs of flower buds forming, but those huge mounds are borage, most of which will have to come out as they grow far too big and will be in the way.

Tomatoes, chilli and courgette bed, plus flowers

Out of the above picture are the 4 Cayenne peppers which must have been sown into better compost as they are growing fine and even have a few flowers now.

Cayenne pepper

I did despair of getting any cucumbers as this photo will show. The cucs are the tiny blobs on the left next to the frame - that's why there is a big empty space here as I know it will/should be filled by the time I have 3 plants climbing up the frame! One poor plant died really quickly as I'd planted it in a red ants' nest (hence the ant poison - I wouldn't normally do that but where else can I plant the cucumbers?!). I have two spares waiting in the wings just beginning to show signs of life too. I had to feed them as I have put all these problems of plants raised in pots not growing down to a batch of potting compost with something very, very wrong with it. Later sowings of certain veg have not had this problem. Anyway, cucs ARE beginning to grow now that I have fed them, and just so long as they can get their roots out of that potting compost and into the nice soil enriched with rotted horse manure they should romp away.

I do have umpteen dozen lettuce all ready at once as is always the way. The thing is I like so many different kinds of hearted lettuce, particularly cos, which is normally only any good for a spring sowing because it bolts before maturity in a normal, dry and warm summer. (This summer is not normal!!!)

Well the lettuce is doing well, and the beetroot is coming along, albeit slowly

Peas, mange tout and broad beans have all been hugely succesful as you probably know. I'm putting that down to the wet spring as they have loved all the moisture although the wind has been a pain in the bum and they've all been flopped over at 45 degrees and have been propped up again and again with more and more bamboo canes and string. Piggy twee sticks (I said that wrongly once and it's stuck!) on their own are absolutely useless.

Mange tout and not so straight lines of haricot vert, purple and beurre.
And weeds!

My garlic has been lifted - it had a very bad case of rust which Monty Don says means the garlic won't store but I beg to differ. Rust is prevalent here and I never have a year without rust on my alliums (and quite often on many other plants as well from roses to plums) - it's already on my baby leeks and the spring onions next to it. I haven't found any problems with storing rusty garlic.

Rusty but nicely bulked up garlic

I've now sown lettuce sowing no. 4 where the garlic was on the left, with leeks next to it then spring onions. On the far right are my pink Roscoff onions which don't have any rust and look lovely and fat - again just incredible as I've never once had to water them and I'm usually watering onions like crazy as they have a very short root system.

Note perfect straight lines due to pegs and string!
That's a magenta orach on the left by the way. I've just left it there to be decorative.

Overall though I'm pretty happy. If tomatoes are not to be this year, well at least I have enough bottled tomato sauce from last year to last until about Xmas!

Veg patch. The pallet edging needs replacing now as it's falling to pieces.

The wildflowers for pollinators are a success. They started flowering in under two months since sowing! I don't see that they are particularly abuzz with pollinators yet, but it doesn't 'help' that I have two varieties of campanula plus catmint in the bed just behind, which are really popular with bees. I have so far seen several hoverflies and bumble bees in this patch, plus a bee fly.

Wildflower mix for pollinating insects

Bumble bee on phacelia flower

I'm also happy because the two Potimarron squash which self seeded and have been moved into the right position are growing well now and beginning to flower. Just the fact that only two germinated from our compost is wierd enough as normally there are tons which I have to hoe off, but an entire packet of brand new seed also refused to germinate.... oh well, you win some, you lose some with gardening, and some things will always remain a mystery! 

At least we will not go hungry this year, and neither will the bees. :-)

Wind damage

Wednesday was a horrible day with howling gales (along with the all too often April showers at the moment), so consequently there was some damage.

The poor honeysuckle was the first to cop it. I don't have an up close photo of it as it was only in bud but it's the bushy shrub in the top left, in front of the wall and behind the little red leafed tree. The wind was coming from behind the wall and just blew it and the trellis off the wall, and only the poor little tree was holding it up!

We were out in the howling wind trying to hold it up so we could hack it back, all whilst trying not to tread on too many plants in the flower bed underneath. It's not a pretty sight now and most of the flower buds have gone. I know it'll grow back (and we need to do something to hold it up a bit better as it's got really quite big with huge woody stems now, but that can wait for better weather) but it look a mess right now!

Later on we discovered that rather surprisingly, a conifer (Spruce I think) in the woodland area had snapped clean off. We'd never noticed that just above where it broke, the trunk forked off into two leaders, which is quite unusual. It landed on top of a Mirabelle plum, Elder and narrowly missed my lovely Hawthorn. Quite a few tall thin Elms were snapped in two as well. Luckily this was behind our wood shed/shack out in the woodland so the top of the tree was leaning against the tin roof, so that's probably why the other trees underneath didn't get totally flattened.

It'll be a bit brighter in this corner now half this tree has gone!
 

Oh well on the plus side, at least there is some firewood here, but it needs to season for several years; the downside is getting rid of loads of branches which will mean a number of trips to the tip with our little trailer. The other trees survived but have branches and bits knocked off but Elder is very resilient, so although it looks a bit of a mess I'm sure it will be fine. It was just that it happened in a spot which looks pretty at various times from the blossoms of all three trees. The Mirabelle has only produced one fruit in 7 years so I will chop that back as it's all bent over now; if it doesn't like it it's not like I'm going to be missing any fruit! Why it was ever planted here in the first place I have no idea.

As for my poor old Purple Sprouting Broccoli! It was already leaning over at an angle as the veg patch is very exposed and I have to stake tall veggies up. But now most of them are flattened, but they've not done well this year and some of the main stems are rotting and I've no idea why. Some are only just starting to get flower buds which is so late.

It could have been much worse, but even so it's still a shame when trees and shrubs are damaged, but I'd rather a bit of that than find the chicken shed tin roof in the next door field. Or even my own house roof, god forbid!