There's something rather special about waking up in the rural south west. The area I live in is in the middle of an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and the minute you step out the door your hit with the sound of bird song. For the past few days we have been slammed with heavy rain so getting out to inspect things was at the top of my priorities this morning. So I figured I'd put it down in the garden journal as I walked about collecting my lists of garden tasks for the day.
When I moved in the roses on my door step were near deaths door, as they were fungus ridden and almost appeared a write off. But after careful tending I'm getting to enjoy the rewards. I spent a few minutes with coffee in hand dead heading them and the smell was amazing. It was like a heady deep rose perfume that was mixing with the smell of the coffee in my hand, and it added a certain freshness to the morning. Sort of added to my wake up. I have no clue what variety of rose this is, but it's definitely expressive. In the evenings if I leave my kitchen door open the smell floods the bottom floor of the house in the evening. All the careful recovery work has paid off.
As usual if you've been trapped inside during heavy rain for a few days things sneak up on you. The beans are in need of strings to climb up on. These are a slow growing purple variety that apparently will yield into the early winter once they start fruiting. I made a mental note of the job and carried on pottering.
In my last post I covered how a cat had basically devastated my tuber bed. My carrots, parsnips, beetroots, all of them were dug up over the course of three days. I reseeded the bed and bought some cover for the area. Some seedlings are popping their heads up so fingers crossed they make it up by late autumn. I've started tubers late as July before and had a reasonable autumn harvest so I'm not fretting to much. Just a damn annoyance.
In my last post I covered how this improvement project started as the garden was basically over grown to jungle proportions. The slope I live on is actually part of an old iron age hill fort and the entire thing was covered in ivy. It was abysmal. So I removed all the debris and weeds and sowed part of it with wild flowers and different types of poppies. Mainly to attract a number of different beneficial insects and create helpful habitats for the song bird population. It seems to have worked as it's looking much brighter now. Only down side is I believe a rabbit warren has formed up at the top of the slope due to the new cover so I may have to get rid of the hungry pests over the coming week.
The day before all this rain hit I had taken to killing the weeds on the gravel path using a vinegar solution. I have a huskie who lounges around outside at her leisure and I didn't want to use harsh chemicals around her or the food I'm growing. However the rain has been constant so there's a good chance today is going to be a reapply day as it would have washed away most of it.
Below is a picture of something no one wants to see in their garden first thing in the morning. Powdery mildew. It's a shame as it can utterly destroy a plant and we worked hard to raise this rose from a really deteriorated state. The potted flowers are sort of my partners thing, but I know when she wakes up and sees this she'll be gutted. I'm probably going to try a fairy liquid and bicarb solution to see if I can knock it back.
Fungus and mildew love things like roses, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. Every year I've grown a garden I've been up against these things and each year it's a set back. Mainly due to the cool wet we can get in the UK, it just makes it ideal for fungus to grow. I'm hoping it doesn't get out of hand this year with the wet weather though. I'm probably going to have to start treating my tomatoes with a hydrogen peroxide solution now to prevent this as an issue before it spreads.
It was nice to see the onions and leeks carrying on at pace. The beds their in at the moment are going to be re-enriched after I harvest and I'm putting in winter cabbage and sprouts. Due to having to give the entire garden a face lift it is looking like our winter garden will be better than our summer from a food producing perspective. But I'm fine with that. Winter is when I'm expecting food inflation to really start to hit so it sorta works out.
The sunflowers that were sort of an after thought seem to be shooting up. We literally just threw them in and thought nothing of it. The bed their pot is sitting in will be sown with bright lights chard for the winter as it's a healthy green that survives snow, hard frost, etc. I'm also sowing it with beets at the end of the month.
So it looks like today will be a grass cutting, weeding, disease treating day in the farm house garden. As I was heading in to finish my coffee and write this post I saw this little cheeky bloom poking its head out of hiding. The colour is pretty catching so I'm hoping to see more this year out of this plant.
Well guys that's it for this post. Again I'm new to the garden journal thing here, so bear with me. My goal is to have an area that's producing food, but is still wild. The whole house is surrounded by things like honeysuckle, mint, lemon balm, and the like so I'm attempting a wild garden space of sorts with food produced in the middle. Don't know how it will work out long term, but I'm hopping record errors and success here on the blog. If you've made it this far thanks for stopping by. As always looking forward to checking out all you guys amazing posts and projects. :)