I’m talking about the inaccuracy of recent weather forecasts. I receive notifications on my phone from the Met Office of weather warnings, and in the past week I have lost count of the number that have foretold of rain, heavy rain, prolonged rain, biblical floods… So far this month I have measured 1.6mm in my rain gauge, barely enough to dampen the ground. The BBC is no better, it forecast heavy rain and thunderstorms for Saturday night, what actually happened? Nothing. If they don’t have a clue what is going to occur I would rather that they didn’t whip me up into a frenzy of anticipation and excitement and just kept quiet. The result is, I haven’t had the sprinklers on because I didn’t want to use water unnecessarily, and now some of the crops are really stressed because they are gasping for a drink. Look I know that I will be moaning my ruddy head off in no time at all, complaining about the never ending precipitation, but right now I just want a drop of rain, and for those weather boffins to pedal a little harder to get their computers to cough up some reliable data. (it will probably hiss down tonight after this rant).
They are now saying that come the middle of the week overnight temperatures could drop as low as 3° and only 15° during the day (BBC), but should I believe them? What I do know is that the past week has seen a dramatic change in the growth of many of the crops, they know it’s now autumn, and they are jolly well going to put their feet up and doing very little. The tomatoes have really slowed down, and the courgettes have all but given up, beans too are on their last legs. It’s the natural transition from summer to autumn, but it has happened very dramatically this year.
The badger continues to thwart my efforts to keep it out. Every time that I patch the fence at its point of entry it comes along that night and rips the repair apart, even when I reinforce it with concrete blocks. It has become an arm wrestle between us, and frankly old Brock is definitely ahead on points. The photo below shows how it casts away the heavy concrete as if it were a mere bauble. My spirit is almost broken, and to add insult to injury it is now installing proper permanent toilets on my growing beds and filling them with….you know, rather than randomly defecating as it was before. It is saying “I am here to stay matey, get used to it”.
I didn’t have a great week. After picking apples on Monday my left eye was sore and a bit bloodshot, and I assumed that I had got a foreign body in it from one of the trees. I used some saline solution to bathe it, but as the days passed it was becoming more bloodshot, puffy, and uncomfortable. It wasn’t until Thursday that I went to the pharmacy for an opinion. I was told that it was most likely conjunctivitis and was given some drops. After a few applications of the medication my eye began to feel more comfortable and it wasn’t glueing up overnight, good news eh? Then yesterday my other eye succumbed, but at least I’ve got the means to deal with it.
I dropped the first batch of apples off at the commercial orchard on Tuesday for pressing. I will be collecting the bottled juice this coming Tuesday, so I have added it to the shop labelled as ‘medium’, but until I try it I have no idea what it tastes like. Neither do I know how many bottles I will be collecting, but I suspect that it won’t be a large number. Tomorrow I have recruited my grandson Angus to help me pick more fruit. He is back off to Uni on Saturday, so I only have a small window of opportunity in which to exploit him. What’s the betting that it rains?
As a consequence of the aforementioned change in season, so the contents of the shop takes on a different look. As I said, beans and tomatoes are in decline so your French beans could be either green or purple. I am between crops of lettuce so there are none this week. There are pointed cabbages, cavolo nero, limited purple sprouting broccoli, bunched beetroot, and I will be picking my sweetcorn. It is a bi-colour variety called ‘My Fair Lady’ and has slender cobs with sweet kernels. Lemons this week are ‘Verdelli’, which as the name implies, have a green tinge to them. I don’t yet know what type the eating apples will be, but if they are smallish like last week I will put more in your bag than the 4 listed in the shop.
I’m feeling a bit tired this evening. Last night I camped out again with my friend Alf in his woodland. It wasn’t a particularly late night, but I didn’t have an unbroken night of sleep, so early to bed tonight I think. It was lovely sitting in front of the camp fire in the warm still night air watching the flames dance and the smoke curl, in the company of a close friend that one doesn’t have to search for topics of conversation, because the verbal exchanges flow naturally, coming from the best part of a lifetime of friendship, and any silences are comfortable and do not have to be filled.
Right, that’s me done for another week. See you back here next week, same time, same place.
Phil