PLANTS IN FLOWER: Water-lilies (several types), Sweet peas, Roses, Lavender, Sage, Stock, Pinks, Thrift, Iris, Meadowsweet, Nepeta, Mallow, Forget-me-not, Lilies.
This month has been cooler than usual with many days being grey and overcast. But despite this, the pond has seen lots of action: toads call to each other during periods of quiet in the day; the motionless heads of golden frogs can often be seen just above the surface; while newts appear in the shallows and masses of dragonflies skim the surface in tones of brilliant blue and emerald. It is such a pleasure to see that this wildlife pond which was only created a couple of years ago is already teeming with life. The redstart was back nesting in the box on the birch tree in the main border earlier this year and can often be seen flitting around in the low branches. The swallows are back in the barn too along with the long-eared bats.
The vegetable garden is full of food already with small carrots, parsnip, celariac already ready; the peas are going over but there are tons of broad beans. The runner beans are racing up the wigwams provided and have already passed the top, the same as the beautiful dark purple sweet pea plants. The main disaster in this part of the garden is my lettuces, rocket and salad crops which tend to bolt immediately due to the lack of rain (or water provided). Also my coriander has refused to grow despite several sowings which again I think was due to lack of rain at the critical time. Still the flourishing herb garden provides plenty of aromatic leaves for cooking with tarragon, sage, lovage, angelica, thyme, bay, parsley, chives, marjoram, oregano and several mints in a separate trough to keep the roots from spreading. The mini box seedlings with which I edged the bed are growing strongly too. But I now realize I have grown far too many potatoes, enough to feed the whole valley, so have started giving them away by the sackful!
I am not sure why my vegetables have hardly suffered from snails, slugs or rabbit damage this year, as there are plenty of them around in the garden. I guess Cous cous keeps the rabbits at bay: confined to the far side of the stream. Having deep beds, surrounded by cedarwood chips may also prove to be a good natural deterrent for slugs and snails, or maybe it is the large family of hedgehogs which I discovered earlier in the autumn and which had taken up residence, are keeping them down. On the other hand it may be pure luck in that the pests have not had time to discover the existence of the edibles in the vegetable garden yet ... and next year will be different story!