Berry good(ish) news

This is what I just had for lunch.

French toast with blueberry sauce and strawberries fresh picked from the garden. YUM! The raised bed Cec kindly built for me last year and into which I transplanted the strawberries in January is bearing an extraordinary amount of fruit. I can barely keep up. (I say “barely” because, really, there is no limit on the number of strawberries one can consume in a day, is there?)

Here is today’s haul. 

Yes, that is a combination of strawberries and raspberries.

The good news is that shifting the raspberry plants into better soil in an area with more sunlight has also worked a treat. 

The bad news is that it really is far too early in the summer to have this many raspberries. We’ve had one rainy day since the beginning of May (and it was more of a sprinkly day) and all signs are that it’s going to be another long hot summer. Fantastic! say the beach bunnies. Not so much, says everyone who realises this in not the way it’s supposed to be. May is supposed to be nice and June is supposed to be wet. That’s how we manage to grow fruit and vegetables in our gardens without running our wells dry. 

It’s only just the first official day of summer (so why is it known as midsummer?) and already islanders are wondering how much they dare water their gardens. (If any of them are still watering their bloody lawns they deserve to have their wells run dry.) Not good. 

Oh, yikes. Speaking of midsummer, I need to get ready for this afternoon’s rehearsal. 

As I said on Facebook yesterday, me in a Shakespeare play? I really didn’t see that coming.

Happy Solstice, all.

Five years on

 14 June 2010

14 June 2015

If that doesn’t make you say “Wow!” what on earth would?

Just sayin'.

Blooming (not so) marvellous

Yes, I know. The garden updates are coming thin and slow. What can I say? First I was busy rehearsing for the world premiere of my play, and since then I have been (believe it or not) in rehearsals for staged readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Seriously.

And then, of course, there is the almost completely irresistible prospect of spending time on the garden swing with Stella and a book. When am I supposed to find time to catch up?

So today we are going to have a few words about blossoms, going back to early May.

There are vases filled with lilacs all through the house, thanks to a bumper crop of blossoms.

Pretty impressive, eh?

Unfortunately, this is not my lilac tree. It’s Pat’s. My tree has once again failed to produce a single bloom. Apparently my tree will only bloom for Krys. And then (given that she was here in March) only if she’s here at blossom time.  Even more annoyingly, the second lilac I bought last year and planted in the excavated hole filled with sea soil has also (despite the promises of the garden shop) failed to produce a single bloom.

It’s a good thing Pat is very generous with his lilacs.

Elsewhere, the apple tree, which produced an abundance of blossom the first year (and one apple) and an abundance of blossom the second year (and eight apples), doesn’t seem all that happy. It took a long time for it to even begin producing leafs and this year there is not a single blossom. Oddly enough, neither has Pat’s much older and well-established apple tree, so I tell myself (somewhat optimistically) that perhaps apple trees occasionally take a year off. Au contraire, I discover when I later make enquiries at the garden shop. Have I, they ask, pruned it? Pruned it? It’s a tiny little spliced apple tree that consists of little more than twigs. Surely pruning it would kill it? Apparently not. Oh, well. Next year.

Back in early April, the pear tree, added last year, did produce a lot of blossom.

Several weeks later there is nothing on the tree even hinting it might turn into a pear.  So much for my orchard plans. (Yes, I am kidding.)

Leaping forward to June, there is some better bloomin’ news.

 The never-watered, never-disappoints blackberry is once again producing an abundance of bee-friendly blossom.

And every day there are new roses for the bud vases.

Now. If you’ll forgive me, the garden swing calls.