Yep, they’ve arrived, and I have a bite on my calf to show for it! Whilst the growing season is a couple of weeks behind this year the horseflies are bang on time. Cleg? Oh yes, didn’t you know? It’s another name for them, as is gadfly. I’m not sure that I knew until it came up as a crossword puzzle clue recently. I call them something quite different! They normally terrorise me for a month, and then they are gone, but in that month paranoia sets in. I must make sure that I am well stocked with Anthisan cream, I find that it provides fast relief to the painful bites. The one that got me today will not be reproducing!
The arrival of the horseflies also signals that summer is here, and by golly isn’t it here with a bang? Yesterday was beautiful and today was scorching. At 3.30 this afternoon at the garden it was 30.4°, and it felt like it. I had the sprinklers irrigating the squash patch all day. Until this last few days the plants had just sat there miserably doing nothing in the cool grey days, but with the sunshine and warmth they have finally woken from their slumber and are putting on growth and are producing flowers. The runner bean plants are also on the move. I regularly pass an old boy’s (he’s probably not much older than me) vegetable garden that I admire, and 6 weeks ago I saw that he had planted out his beans a good couple of weeks before I intended to. Every week I have observed them, and each time I have looked they have barely moved and have taken on a sickly yellow hue. Inwardly I was quite pleased that his early gamble hadn’t paid off – mean aren’t I? I hope that his beans flourish, but that mine are just a little more impressive and productive. My broad beans do not look like being heavy croppers this year. They are tall, have had plenty of blossom, but the quantity of pods forming is disappointing. It’s the lack of rain in the past month or more that I am blaming.
Watering the squash patch
Just to prove that we have been here before, here is a cutting from 1893
From the Haverhill Echo, 10th June, 1893:
Mr J. S. Gardiner of Borley writes to say he has been farming for fifty seven years and he has never known such a drought.
I made a discovery early last week. Close to the brick wall of the big greenhouse, amongst some nettle stems is a Mallard duck sitting on eggs. She knows that I know that she is there, but thankfully it hasn’t put her off. I greet her as I pass, and I put a tub of water close to her as I was concerned about the high temperature. She rarely leaves the nest to eat and drink poor love. I do hope that she has success in hatching her eggs. Because I hadn’t spotted her until last Monday I don’t know how long she has been sitting, so when the ducklings will emerge is anyone’s guess.
I inspected the orchard last week as I cut the grass, and was alarmed to see that the fruit set appears to be very poor. I don’t understand why that is, the trees were festooned with blossom, and there was no late frost to damage it, and my three apple trees at home look to have a good lot of miniature apples forming. As an aside, I couldn’t remember how to spell miniature. Do you ever get that, when a word just looks wrong whichever way that you spell it? Anyway, if it’s as bad as I think it is the apple harvest could be well down come the late summer.
There is not much change to what’s in the shop this week, but the spring greens will be my own, and I am offering small bunches of my Kohl rabi. The cabbage are pointed ones that I am cutting before they have hearted up. Better to use them when the leaves are dark and healthy than wait until they have chunked up but are past their best because they all mature at once. There will be loose leaf lettuces, red and green, and little gem ones too. This will be the last week of bought in mini cucumbers, because from next week I will have enough of my own from the greenhouse. Apologies for the lack of courgettes last week, they didn’t arrive…..because I had forgotten to order them! All being well there should be some this week, and after my holiday my own ones should be producing well. Lemons are smaller this week, there is Kiwi fruit from Greece, Gala apples from Kent, and Oranges from Italy. The oranges are now becoming scarce, so the price of them continues to increase, sorry.
I’ve got a lot to do in the next week and a half before heading off to Devon for a week. Dragging hosepipes and sprinklers around to keep everything alive isn’t helping, but the much talked about thunderstorms don’t look like hitting us, so it will be more of the same. I need to string up the polytunnel tomato plants and set up the automated drip irrigation for them. I have got lots of young plants to transplant, and I need to keep on top of the weed control, not to mention the grass cutting. At least the growth of that has slowed down because of the lack of rain.
So everything is normal this week, but week commencing 19th will not be. If you normally have a Friday delivery it will be a day early, but Thursday deliveries are unaffected. There will be no Saturday collections from Wyken on the 24th of June or the 1st of July. I will repeat this next week.
Right, it’s still 25° so I am going to sit outside with a glass of something very cold. Have a fab week.
Phil
Hello Phil, sad to say our orchard is the same – hardly any Bramleys or russets, or culinary pears, better on the Jupiter and Spartan apples and I think the quince.
Plums appear to be doing well,
no order from us this week or next although I may drop by Wyken on Saturday
All the best,
At least it’s not only me, though of course I would love you to have a bountiful harvest.