2025 - What I did today

I went out yesterday with the whole family more or less, to a place called Osby. There's a garden there - huge! Mainly forest garden, with a swimming pond, but also a few tropical greenhouses. Lovely place.

The same company has a plant shop nearby, and they have a sale on at the moment. I got a mulberry tree, about 1 meter tall, a raspberry tree, about 80 cm tall, a normal raspberry, about the same height, and a water lily as a birthday present for my sister, for less than 60 quid. Bargain!

It was really baking hot, so whatevr i did was donemin slow motion.

Tidied and cleared the broad bean patch, I might grow some Snak Hero there although flea beetle might be a problem. Traipsed up the garden with a 2gal watering can to give the gasping new blackberry plant amdrink then mulched it with compost. There were 2 berries on it. The thug blackberry is extremely prolific this year, like lots of other fruit (except my raspberries , bah!   ) . The thug isn't ripe yet, the berries are all green. The new one taste a lot sweeter and is a different shape. Started picking over the chard for miner eggs prior to covering it with mesh or fleece. Then the heat overcame me.

Oh and some excitement too. We were going out for the day yesterday, but I spotted a cow that was laid really close to the water's edge down by our pond. Too close for comfort, really. I went closer and realised that she was not laid there for fun - she had slid into the water and couldn't get up again.

I rang the owner and he brought his farmer partner and we tried to shoo her up one of the less steep slopes, but to no avail. An hour later my family arrived, so we had to leave. Turns out they had to call out emergency services who had to pull her out of the water with a crane. I wasn't there to see it, sadly. She was lifted out the water five hours after I found her there, happily reunited with her calf.

Oh and some excitement too. We were going out for the day yesterday, but I spotted a cow that was laid really close to the water's edge down by our pond. Too close for comfort, really. I went closer and realised that she was not laid there for fun - she had slid into the water and couldn't get up again.

I rang the owner and he brought his farmer partner and we tried to shoo her up one of the less steep slopes, but to no avail. An hour later my family arrived, so we had to leave. Turns out they had to call out emergency services who had to pull her out of the water with a crane. I wasn't there to see it, sadly. She was lifted out the water five hours after I found her there, happily reunited with her calf.

Happy ending thank goodness!

Yesterday I cut my beech hedge, top and side and went next door and cut the other side to finish it off. I didn't get around to cutting my side last year so thre were some hefty branches and I had to brave some nettles, as well as balancing on a woodpile at one end!

Today I have took my Motorhome and filled up with diesel. The reason was mainly because I needd a shortish journey to make sure my gear knob that I have just fitted worked ok and I ould get all the gears? Lucklily it seemed to be fine. The original gear knob exploded in my hand and sent a spring into the passenger footwell! I bought a new one off Amazon but was worried it wasn't fitted correctly, but it was thankfully!
My other job is to ajust the rear ride height by adding air to the bellows that are added to make it less bouncy on the road. It seems ok but looks slightly low at back to me so I will have a bit play around with an air compressor!
After that a visit to the allotment is called for hopefully.

Watered stuff for a while then directed another pumpkin out the back door at the other end of the polytrunnel. Then gave some belated maintenance to the tomatoes and melons. Quite a few tomato flowers were dropping off and a few with end rot. I put it down to the heat and not quite enough water. Picking Galina and gardeners delight now. The melons were all straggling on the ground. I've tied up the longest vines and taken the ends of any others. There are quite a few melons developing now. I tied up some roma tomato plants that were suffocating peppers and aubergines nearby. There are one or two aubergines coming, long purple I think which can be quite quick to develop.

Topped up the compost bins with chopped montbretia stems (the roots are in wastebin). Also chopped up some oak and hazel twigs. Nice to be able to work in the garden without "glowing".