Orchard update Sunday 28th June

At last some real colour in the flower garden as the cornflowers snap dragons and cosmos burst open. The ground is very dry despite the welcome rain, but at least the slugs are lying low.

The loganberries dripping from the branches, and blueberries ripening. The birds are very keen on them too so net curtains now offering protection.

Wonderful picnic with Great Neices Ena and Dulcie at the summer place yesterday, sunshine, scones, lots of roly polies on the grass.

Is it really week 7 in the garden?

We are too busy to stop and write much BUT at 2 Coombe cottages we have been:

(glorious buzz-buzz-buzzing of bees on the cat mint)

1. Planting out the final marrows and squashes in the old forget-me-not raised bed, and Cosmos in all the little gaps we can find.

(Rose at the front of the house)

2. Doing some final sowings of pak choi, carrots, spring onions and beetroot in big tubs (emulating S's orchard) 

(The allotment - potatoes in the foreground)

3. Eating potatoes, sugar snaps, cut and come again lettuce and spinach.

(The cutting patch - you can see the stocks have come up!)

4. Filling the house with the scent of sweet peas, stocks and feverfew.

We are excited by the sunflowers and dahlias and even the late planted Persian buttercups look like they might flower this year, and the toads are establishing well in the allottment triangle, cleverly making homes underneath planks and pots. 

(E has a view of this from her window!)

And the best flower of the week has to be the Rose 'tree'. This was a cutting from Mickeys garden in Suffolk and planted in ?1995 when we forts came to the house. It was planted to grow up I a dying ornamental prunus -  the prunus is now happy and the Rose dominates the garden for two wonderful weeks in June/July.

Interesting fact of the week: In China, they see the "TOAD," not the "man" in the moon. The toad is also considered "one of the five poisons of yin." They say that eclipses happen when the "toad in the moon" tries to swallow the moon itself!

And why gardeners love toads:

• Common Toads produce a toxin from a pair of glands on their back which makes them distasteful to would-be predators.
•  They may remain in one area for long periods over the summer months, hunting for slugs, spiders and insects at night.
• Toadlets and adults spend the winter buried down in mud, under compost heaps or amongst dead wood. 

Week 6 in the gardens

It's been a beautiful sunny week leading up to the longest day so the gardens are all preparing for productivity! The CC household are contemplating stopping the veg box order for the summer with the prospect of spicy salad leaves, chard and spinach, sugar snap peas and potatoes all begin being harvested in the next week.

The Coombe cottage garden 'allotment' triangle has switched from blues and purples and pinks to a lovely dapled pattern of green and tiny white flowered towers of peas, feverfew and foliage.

Best plants of the week have been 

1. The mixed sweet peas ( sown 18 January inside - Frangatissima, Turquoise lagoon and Purple Pimpernel as well as a few unannmed saved sed from 2014) We started picking this week, and the scent is fantastic. We are planning to give a bunch away every other day.

2. The night stocks  ( sewn 1 March and planted out 26 April)  are beginning to bloom - we'd thought they would be white but have come through beautifully pink, white and purple. We can't bear to pick them yet!

3. The bright star-white flowers of love in-the-mist - the contrast between the green frondy foliage and the white is even better than the traditional blue.

4. The cutting patch is coming along nicely with the alliums finally beginning to burst at the front and the sunflowers at the back starting the spurt to the sky phase of their lives. The technique of planting in a trench which you then earth up to give more support seems to be working alongside the new support canes and wires. 

Casualties have been few this week - black flies are continuing to really plague the beans, and are now even spreading through the feverfew and bolted spinach. We are continuing to knock them off with a hose. We really need to plant earlier in the year. 

And are those alliums going to burst? They've been at the point of flowering for nearly 6 weeks! 

The orchard allottment

S returned from her French meanderings to a mega-weeding week and now the cutting patch is coming along well. There look to be lots of lovely self sewn flowers from last year coming through. The summer palace was celebrated by book group with a balmy summer evening without any insects swarming! 

Best plants are those amazing carrots again- we swear they've put on 6 inches in a week, 

the bright orange of the calendula, and the fantastically fruitful loganberries and blueberries.

Difficulties are with the gypsophilia-n-bean-eating rabbits. However s and r are finding the organic repellant they applied before going (liquid fence) may be working after all our doubts. 

Fact of the week: For centuries, carrots have been connected with health benefits. In the Middle Ages, carrots were believed to cure anything from sexually transmitted diseases to snakebites. Carrots became associated with vision, particularly night vision, during World War II. The British Royal Air Force published a story that said skilled fighter pilot John "Cats' Eyes" Cunningham could thank a steady diet of carrots for his night vision flying prowess. In response to the story, many British people began to grow and eat more carrots. They wanted to improve their vision so that they could see better during the compulsory blackouts that were common during World War II. Although Cats' Eyes' carrot eating made for a great story, it was, in fact, propaganda put out to conceal the fact that the Royal Air Force's was actually using radar to locate Luftwaffe bombers during the night.

The garden project's fifth week

Wonders this Week at 2 Coombe Cottages:

The big blousy poppies (papaver) are out - saucer sized pink and black faces in the garage and side beds. They were planted last year by seed and are meant to be the variety 'patty plum' Thought they would be purple, but only pink ones have come up.

The wonderfully vibrant blue of the cranesbill geranium (probably Johnson's Blue), in the side bed - we inherited this bed so I don't know the species but we've added contrasting colours and heights of geranium species as they seem to tolerate clay and slugs and shade (not the greatest gardening milieux). This blue one, along with a tiny salmon pink one are generally the first to flower. 

The shrubs we planted around the shed in February are surviving, so have been given a summer boost of fertiliser and a soak. They are a mixture of saved plants, gifts and November-sales at 'Sandra's' world, a nearby garden centre. 

The sugar snap peas (mange tout, oregon), planted out early May, are flowering - sewn inside in April.
Dahlias are growing...

No major casualties or disasters:
Just the forget me nots (myositis scorpeoides) going over to make way for our pot bound Cosmos (sewn, early March: Cosmos sensation mixed) and more squashes and pumpkins. The high powered spraying water on the broad beans has worked really well to reduce the aphids and slug patrol seems to be controlling things along with the toad families. 

S and R's orchard:

The owners are away so we had a sneaky peak and found some treasures: 

Little forests of carrots in those black bins - amazing technique!

Beautiful blushed nectarines firming up. We noted the deer-badger-rabbit proofing techniques and hope they work. 

Calendula (calendia officianalis, historically used for medicinal and culinary purposes) brightly proclaiming the early summer sun.

And the Summer Palace waiting for long sun-filled evenings...

We noticed how much colder the orchard was in comparison to the garden last night - it's literally only a few feet higher and quarter of a mile away from Coombe cottages but we can see it's making a difference.

Interesting Fact:

The story of the forget-me-not. In 15th century Germany wearing them was meant that you wouldn't be forgotten by your lover. Legend had it it that a knight was walking with his lover by a river and bent to pick some flowers, but fell in, the weight of his armour drawing him under. As he drowned, he threw the posy back, crying: vergissmeinnicht! (Forget-me-not!)

Week 4 in the Garden

News from The Orchard 

It's been a hard and cold week. S and R are going away for 10 days and are hoping for a turn around in the weather and the growth whilst they are away hunting down vintage costumes in France...

Rabbit attack on all the beans. This has never happened before and it's difficult to think of humane or reasonable strategies to make them go away.  R and S are trying 'liquid fence ' which is organic and safe for people pets and plants but is meant to repel by its scent. We suspect it doesn't work...

Weeds are sadly overtaking the flowers. The worst one looks like a low slung thistle. S suspects the weeds are worse this year because of rotavating so it's going to be black plastic or back to digging over next winter. 

The Sweet Williams are ready for picking - still beautiful big pink and red heads.

Aphids are still plaguing the apple tree and being harvested by ants - soapy water seems to be relatively unsuccesful but the apples themselves look ok and it's just deforming the leaves. 

All the sweet peas have been munched in the orchard by slugs but they are ok at home as the plants are stronger and the organic pellets seem to help. 

And news from the Combe cottages flower gardens...

Despite the cold week we've had some successes and the garden looks pretty good.

Highlights are: 

The amazing dahlias are now sticking up their little leaves 

(and only a few have been munged so far)

Slug patrolling  is doing well - 50 found and squashed last night. (For this technique you need one very bright torch, a pair of gloves, heavy shoes/wellies and a strong stomach! You need to go out between 11 and midnight, use the torch to spot them, pick them up and squash! Disrupting the soil around where the slug has been I think also makes sure no one uses the trail again ....) 

The front of the house is a treat!

Sweet peas are looking possibly the best ever. We sewed them in February in loo rolls - a mixture of saved seeds, 

Lovely white and black dot flowers on the broad beans

The golden Rose on the front of the house has been in full flower all week.

And lovely pinks in pots

The failures and sadnesses this week

Burning the fireblight tree - although 2 small boys did have beans and sausages on the campfire building up to it. Other apple tree beginning to fruit and looks very healthy.... Let's hope the blight has not spread. 

So much black fly on the broad beans ... I'm trying just spraying them off with the hose after pinching out the tops. 

Interesting fact of the week

The term "fire blight" describes the appearance of the disease, which can make affected areas appear blackened, shrunken and cracked, as though scorched by fire.

The flower project week 3

The Garden:

What a wonderful week. The garden has just exploded with spires of aquilegia,

bright two-toned colours of valerian in the walls around the little pond at the front of the house,

the allium heads sprouting colour, 

and the yellow-white foxgloves are beginning to flower today.

The Cutting Patch

Highlights of the week:
1. Planting out the 19 dahlias -most are in the cutting patch, with an overflow in the allottment  triangle and side bed and a few in some great pots. The cutting patch is now absolutely full to the brim with possibilities...

2. The beautiful buttercups in the field. Somehow the sheep have grazed the pasture in an odd way - we have a wonderful sweep of yellow in the third of the field nearest the house and the remainder is a waft of grass heads.

3. The conservatory's heat is bringing on the peppers and squashy-marrow things, which are waiting to be planted in holes in the forget-me-nots.

The Allotment

Casualties - no really major ones on things planted this week. The sunflowers and gladioli are slightly munged by slugs and my saved runner seed has had really poor germination. Otherwise the night patrol to remove snails and slugs and the constant picking off of aphids from the peppers and broad beans is keeping everything in an equilibrium. Coffee grounds don't seem to work at all on slugs.

Disaster - M diagnosed systemic fireblight (Erwinia amylovora) in Joes apple tree. We were very shocked as the 'treatment' was to remove it and burn it immediately as it is likely to infect our Bramley. Let's hope we got it in time.

S's orchard highlights:

Growth has been generally a little slow with little rain this week, and germination has also been poor. Larkspur has been particularly patchy but the gypsophilia  looks good and is a wonderful addition to bouquets with its frothy whiteness and filling out with fluff. 

The most exciting event of the week - the giant bee swarm! The noise was obvious first - a low pitched continuous and dense hum and then a menacing black cloud. S and her friend ran for it! P

Highlights: 

1. The iris display has  continued but the last bunch was cut today. The sweet Williams have taken their place  in the flowering line and are about to burst into pink and white and red. It's their second year and although they are not meant to be quite as good second time around these ones look promising. 

2. The carrots in the bin are coming on great - we're not sure of the variety but they are sed given by P next door who has open sown them in defiance of the badgers. It will be an interesting race to see who  gets the carrots first in each plot.

3. During the extensions on Church road S and R transferred a wheelbarrow full of daylillies (Hemerocallis) and Solomon's seal (Polygonatum)  in a bed on the side of the allottment - all looks very promising 

4. There is masses of white loganberry blossom with lots of the bees - yummy there will be a great crop if we can protect them from the birds. 

Casualties :

This is the first year of the precious Willam pear and it had 100 tiny fingers of pears formed BUT all had tiny little holes in leading to and empty nest of blackness. Some of the pears had the nests full of tiny little white maggots - galls of the pear midge (Contarinia pyrivora) . We've taken all of the little pears off and disposed of them wel away form the tree to halt the cycle. 

Aphids (aphodadidae) have attacked one of the young apple trees so it is covered in ants milking the aphid infestation - soapy water isn't really doing the trick. S and R plan to reduce the infestation next year by growing  Morning Glory and alliunms/onions near by, neem oil sprays or thyme/rosemary/peppermint/clove oils 

Interesting story of the week:

Solomon's Seal is named for King Solomon. The Hebrew God gave him great wisdom, and he had a special seal to help him in magic without demons coming to him. Legend has it that he placed this seal on this plant when he recognised its great value. Apparently you can see the seal on the rootstock in the circular scars left by the stem after it dies back!