PHEW - rain at last!

The last time we enjoyed rain was 24 June 2011 - nearly 9 whole weeks ago!  No wonder most of the grass is brown and it's looking like autumn.  The national press have already printed pictures of trees in their autumn livery.  The maples, hazels and birch trees are all changing colour here too.

MESSY WORK - ALL ROUND!

Much has been happening and no time for blogging!  After a day's fruit picking at Paul's, there were jellies to be made - wild crab apple and Scilly mint jelly to be precise!  The gages and blackberries were duly frozen individually and then bagged up for later enjoyment. 

Actually there were 13 jars originally but one and a half have been eaten already and others, given away to deserving friends!  In fact all of that happened before I even got around to doing labels or tops!  

Perhaps I should just allude to the fact that the actual making of the jelly took far longer than getting out pine tree roots.  Why?  I hear you ask!  Well the aged jam kettle hadn't been used since the new Aga arrived and it was used exclusively on the old gas hob - not the Rayburn.  So!  It took over 2 hours to realise that its base had become distorted and that the concavity meant that there was little contact with the boiling plate!  Anyway, the mint jelly is delicious and I'm now the very proud owner of a 'Rolls Royce' jam kettle - courtesy of my loving husband!  Nectarine & scented leaf geranium conserve is next on the preserves agenda!  More messy stickiness to come!

As if that wasn't enough, out in the garden there were pine tree roots to be dug out and lawn repairs to be made.  Chris never needs much of an excuse to swing an axe and after repairs to the turf were made, there was re-seeding to be done.  All of this after weeding both the lower and woodland borders (yawn!)

Well, we knew it was going to be messy but, by the end of the day, all was tidy and we just need to sort out soil leveles around the stump, plant any bulbs and re-seed.

What we REALLY need here  at PTC is RAIN!  It actually hasn't rained here since 24 June.  Everything is tinder dry and parched everywhere.  Rain seems to have fallen just about everywhere else - huge quantities in some areas.  How can so much rain keep dodging us?  We've had dark clouds and serious threats but no more than a few spots.  

Don't be fooled by any green grass seen in photos as we have used well water for irrigation in a few areas - not for the grass but young trees and shrubs.  Any green grass has been close

F.M.J. Birthday Memorial

The Lower Beech

Time to take a break from work at PTC and enjoy another annual F.M.J. memorial birthday trip to visit all the old Salopian haunts  After all, if it wasn't for his teaching and expertise, I wouldn't have learnt the joy of growing things.  This trip was something we always used to do together before the start of another academic year and while the heather was in bloom.  Hard to believe it's been 10 years but so far, the annual tradition has been maintained!  

Luckily, Al loves this part of the world too - it would be hard not too and we were lucky with the weather.  The little thatched house along Arbor Lane where he was born has been much extended at the back and not very sympathetically. Fortunately, it can't be seen from the front.  Also the old Lower Beech Cottage sign on the gate had been removed. 

The Straight Mile

The double avenue of oaks which line the 'Straight Mile' still stand proud.  He helped his father to plant these in 1939 when still a young man.  He used to tell the story of Admiral Sir James Startin being thrown out of a trap when being driven by 2 evacuees whom he was teaching. The trap overturned after a wheel collided with a gatepost and, despite his great age and leg injuries incurred during the 1st world war, the old admiral jumped up laughing and watched the trap drive off out of control and in a cloud of dust without him.

Linley School

The Stiperstones

The old school looks much the same as ever and the distant Stiperstones in the heather looked amazing!

https://picasaweb.google.com/100788191989823327785/FMJCountry?authkey=Gv1sRgCP724IXdlujFRg#

For more photos

The best thing about gardening................

Sutton's Early Onward

There are plenty of flowers on the runner beans and peas are cropping really well this year despite an almost total lack of rain at PTC.  Such crops provide the perfect opportunity to make use of my new 'No 6 Trug!' which was a present from one's ever loving husband. He so enjoys the contents - no prizes for guessing motivation!

 Beefsteak & Black Russian Tomatoes 

The Genever tomatoes are also coming into their own now and the those are the last of the first row of Autumn Kings - which interestingly was planted out as seedlings (hence the quirky shapes!).

The making of the ghost pine

With massive overcrowding and equally massive root damage to the lawn, we found a solution without losing the tree entirely.  It was hardly a suitable specimen tree for a garden - just a scraggy old pine with long roots coming up through the turf becoming worse each season.  The dying grass and the lawn mower damage to the roots combined with the fact that top branches were growing into the Liriodenrdron Tulipifera tree on one side, an Acer Griseum on the other and an ancient Pear at the back.  Close by also is a Cornus and 2 Magnolias.  The poor scraggy old pine had to go!

Overcrowded planting

Bark removal

Lawn damage

We started off at the top, taking out and lowering branches.  Having cut the ends off the branches shortest at the top we then stripped of the bark and pine being pine; this was the world's stickiest job!  Just how sticky is resinous sap?   It got to the stage that we couldn't put down the heavy tools we picked up but the scent of the pine resin was out of this world!  Anyway, we ended up with this rather ghostly looking pine!  We'll let it dry out and decide what to do next.  It does seem an awfully cruel and slow death for a tree as it slowly loses it life's resinous sap.  Anyway, we get to keep it for a while.

We might spray paint it, we might plant an evergreen up it, we might put fairy lights around it or just hang it with lanterns or even coloured glass wasp traps  - quite a few possibilities!  We know that it won't last forever and that it will  eventually rot.  In the meantime it looks quite unusual when uplit at night - if not a little stark surrounded by greenery by day! 

Naked & dying pine!

 (In case you're wondering, the clematis at the bottom is actually called Mrs Thompson!)

Where have all the flowers gone?

Using the hired power scythe

Well, it was a hiring a power scythe again to cut the meadow grass.  After a major hiccup last week, when the grass just kept jamming in unsharpened blades, HSS came up trumps and delivered another machine.  This time, all was perfect. The air is now  heavy with the delicious scent of newly mown hay as it dries in warm summer sunshine.

The end of the day

Using a much more familiar tool!

Having turned the hay and also turned around, I couldn't resist this shot of far distant evening shadows on a corn field beneath Woodbury Hill!

View from our meadow

Three days of sunshine, a light breeze and much turning meant that the loose hay could be lugged. There were  3 full loads and loading high loads of  loose hay in a trailer without thriples was a bit of a test.  Well at least I didn't lose any of it on the slope!

Mini hay lugging

One mown meadow

There will be more than enough for nest boxes for the girls. Some will make garden kneelers. The bulk will go to Ash and Jan's Texels.  (A little bird said they might be showing at Burwarton next month!!)  At the moment the garage looks more like a hay loft!  No room for Mellings or Randolph.  I figure that the 16 x 8 yard meadow has yielded the equivalent of about 3 small bales.  I wonder what the experts would say?  

Now I have to remember what this little patch looked like back in the spring when it was a mass of Cowslips and Moon Daisies.  Oh well. There's always next year!

One Woman Wants to Mow a Meadow!

I've posted this conundrum on an RHS Forum but if any one out there had any ideas, I'd be only too delighted to hear them!

'With all the hype and encouragement to grow meadows: does anyone have any sensible suggestions regarding mowing a small area of meadow grass in order to make hay?  

In past years I have tried the the following methods: scything (back breaking slow and hazardous - despite having received expert tuition!)  Strimming - useless as the minced grass is thrown everywhere.  Strimming with a brush cutting blade - equally useless!  Inverting a pole hedge-cutter - right action but the cutter bar is dragged into the ground and it proved too difficult to control.  Lastly (and not to be out-done) hiring a power scythe (a modern version of an Allen Scythe)  - it works well but means that I have the world's most expensive hay!  Our ride on mower is, of course, a non- starter for such a job as indeed are the other 2 lawn mowers! 

I did think about buying an old Allen scythe but storing it and maintaining it for 30 minutes use once a year doesn't make sense either! Making hay is SO worth doing just to awake to the smell of it!

You'd think that some one would come up with a garden mower with this capability or am I asking too much???  Are perfect swathes of cut grass too much to ask for in a garden?

PS In case you're wondering why I want the hay at all - it makes perfect garden kneelers when stuffed in an an old potting medium bag tied at the end and it lines the hens' nest boxes!'