Pretty impressive, eh?

Yesterday’s blog about the transformation of the diningroom window into a hummingbird haven, prompted me to think it was probably time for the semi-annual “compare and contrast” posting.

I may not (and let’s face it, never will) be successfully growing and harvesting enough fruit and veg to feed myself year round, but, dang, the garden sure does look pretty these days.

This photo was taken yesterday.

This is where we began in May 2010. Pretty fucking impressive contrast, eh?

So, how did we get from this sad photo to the one above it?

Considering where I started in May 2010, I was quite pleased that three months later the garden looked like this. Please note the ceanothus (planted for its bee-friendliness to replace the dead rhododendron marking Jenny’s grave) in the bottom left corner.

I don’t seem to have taken a comparison photo in 2011. It was a bad year for the blog. Not much better for the garden. Hardly surprising, under the circumstances. The photo above was taken in April 2012 – first year I attempted to fertilise (semi) proper beds.

 

By the time this photo was taken in May 2013, I had (thanks to Krys and Glenn) a proper raised bed with fresh top soil. It was a good year for peas, beets, tomatoes, courgettes, squash and strawberries.

 

Alas, I don’t seem to have taken a comparison photo in 2014. Closest thing is this one of the prayer flags I put up confound and confuse Bambo after his garden invasion, but you can at least see there is now a second raised bed, thanks to the wonderful Cec Ashley.

By June 2015, the garden swing (best garden news of that year for both Stella and me) was added. Now let's see that first photo again.

Once again I say (along with giving thanks for the friends who’ve helped), pretty fucking impressive, eh? Oh, and FYI, remember that ceanothus I said to note?

This is what it looks like now.

Rhodo Dave puts me straight

Across the road at Pat’s, in addition to his two heavily lilac-laden trees, his heavenly-scented rhododendron is in full bloom. In fact, rhododendrons are flowering all over the island – except in my back yard. I’m putting this down to the lack of sun back there. After all, the California lilacs in the back flower much later than the one in the garden, so why not?

This looks like it's going to flower, doesn’t it? (Doesn’t it? she repeats plaintively.)

I thought so, but then I realised these are simply new leaves, not flowers. Bollocks.

Nearing the end of rehearsals for Will Shakespeare The Panto, which I directed in 2014, BJ, one of the longstanding panto cast members, looked at me and asked, “What about the children?” To which I replied: “What about them? I’m letting them in, am I not? What more do they want?” BJ pointed out that there was no point in the script assigned to giving sweets to the rug rats. Apparently simply allowing them to attend wasn’t enough. They needed sweets. “Fine,” I said, “you can hand out sweets during the Act One finale*.” Sheesh. Anyone would think that pantos were children’s entertainment. (To avoid a similar debate the following year, I deliberately included handing out sweets in the script. Personally, I still think it’s bloody pandering.)

* Act One finale: A rousing version of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

I was reminded of this conversation yesterday when I went to the rehearsal for A Visit From Miss Prothero. 

Dave, our director, and his wife Jan have dozens (nay, scores) of beautifully flowering rhododendrons scattered around their property. I mention my two rhododendrons showing no sign of wanting to flower, proffering my theory that they’ve been slowed down by lack of sun. Dave looks at me and asks, “What are you feeding them?” I stare back at him blankly. Feeding them? What is he talking about? No one told me rhododendrons had to be provided with slap up meals. “Erm,” I mutter. “I water them.” Surely that’s enough? Au contraire. Apparently, in addition to sun and water, they need food. I see.

Fortunately for me, Rhodo Dave has lots of rhododendron food. He sends me home after rehearsal with a supply.

And he tells me I might want to give my only-ever-flowered-once lilac some of the same food – if I would like it to ever flower again. Well, erm, yes, I would rather like that. (I am, of course, immediately suspicious about the year the lilac did actually flower. Krys was here alone with it for three weeks while I was in England. Had she been cooking four-course meals for the lilac? It begins to seem highly likely. How sneaky was that? And this, of course, is much more comforting than my previous theory that the lilac liked her, but doesn’t like me.)

So, this morning both rhododendrons and both lilacs have been fed. Dave, bless him, realising how completely hapless a gardener I am, promises to remind me when the next feeding is required.  

Now that I have learnt the error of my ways, I confidently predict that this time next year my rhododendrons and lilacs will look just like Pat’s.

  

Just kidding. (I can dream, can’t I?)

Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I had leafy wisteria and clematis vines entwined in the back fence of the garden. Even though the clematis failed to flower this year (apparently this is not uncommon when clematises – clemati? – are replanted), the leafy vines spreading across the fence did look quite pretty. 

This morning when I went down to water the garden, there were no leaves left on the vines of either plant. 

A quick look around the rest of the garden reassures me that he didn’t get into the garden itself, merely managed to squeeze in between the trees and the fence. Bastard, bastard, bastard. 

Elsewhere, in long overdue garden news… 

The spaghetti squash plant, despite a profusion of flowers, has produced one squash. The baby watermelon plant, despite a profusion of flowers, has produced one baby watermelon. 

Disappointing realisation that all the squash seeds I planted that actually sprouted are scallopinis. Which is fine, I suppose, except I really did want more acorn squash this summer and it’s now too late to do anything about it. Oh, well.

The courgette plant, which wasn’t looking too promising, is now producing at a decent clip. (Recently made my first batch of Becky’s excellent courgette and gorgonzola soup.)

One nice surprise: For the first time since I planted it two or three years ago, the pink gooseberry bush has produced fruit this year.

Hardly enough for the gooseberry fool I was dreaming of when I planted it, but tasty nonetheless.

The cherry tomatoes are still producing an abundance of fruit.

Given the tastiness of the yellow cherry tomatoes I planted last summer (after fucking Bambo ate all the red ones), I decided to plant another one this year. This is it.

You can’t fool me. Not only are these tomatoes not yellow, they are three times the size of the cherry tomatoes. (Tasty, admittedly, but not what I thought I was buying at the market back in May.

Like the ridiculously early raspberries, the blackberries are ridiculously early this year. 

Started picking them in mid-July and genuinely cannot keep up. This would be a good year to make jam – if I was a jam maker, but I’m not. Even sharing them with Pat, there is an overabundance. I’ve already frozen about two pounds of them. (Good to know I may not have to buy any frozen berries for my cereal over the winter.)

Another nice surprise in “the back 40”. When it occurred to me a couple of months ago that deer do not eat rhododendrons, I decided to plant a couple in the back. Assumed at the time that they were well past flowering time, but look!

One of them is flowering now. And very pretty the flowers are. 

I’m pleased to report that, touch wood (short pause for me to touch both the desk and my head), the well is still holding up. (Or should I say filling up?) An ongoing worry nonetheless.

Apologies that the updates have been so few and far between, but what can I say? I’d rather be in the garden on the swing with Stella and a good book than in the house writing about the garden at my desk.