It’s hot, hot, hot but still the garden requires some attention

 It is a wee bit warm and I find myself getting up earlier than I would usually.  The pots in the garden, at the very least, need watering and if it is not all going to evaporate that should be done either early or late.   So I find myself wandering round the garden trying to stop plants from drying out too much and dying on me.

The odd weed gets pulled out and squash, trombochino and beans are encouraged to climb up supports.  Courgettes, new potatoes, french beans, broad beans, lettuces, carrots, strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, summer savory, oregano and 3 raspberries have been picked.

A colander (varying sizes) each of the blackcurrants and gooseberries have been topped and tailed for the freezer, the savory and oregano have been dried in the dehydrator and jarred up for use whenever, everything else has been eaten.  Strawberries aside, which are definitely slowing down, it looks like it will keep on coming now (especially courgettes).  Everything seems early to me this year but particularly the raspberries.  They are supposed to be autumn raspberries.  They were chosen specifically so as to not coincide with strawberry/red/black/white currant and gooseberry season.  That and because they are easier to prune than summer ones and do not require tying in.  They are this lazy gardener/cook’s preference.  Or they were before they suddenly started fruiting when the blackcurrants and gooseberries are demanding attention and the white currants aren’t yet taunting me.

The potato pot compost went on top of the cardboard on the small raised bed.  I’m absurdly pleased about this.  I have another 12 of those sized potato pots and 2 of carrots plus another 3 slightly smaller carrot pots.  Now this is all used compost but underneath the cardboard is a good 3 bags of muck and that bed is not looking a big contender to be used this year.  If I deposit all the used potato and carrot pot compost on top of the cardboard it should be a decent thickness layer.  By next year I figure it can be dug over/in and if I add some blood, fish and bone it should be in pretty good shape.  This is the theory.  The soil underneath has been left fallow for 3 years or so, well, neglected actually, but it is much the same thing.

I have bought some largish plastic pots.  I am keeping this quiet from a friend who might be described as an anti single use plastic zealot, or eco-conscious, depending on one’s bent in any particular conversation.  I have had the argument with them before.  I do not regard large display plant pots as ‘single use’.  I both want and expect them to last for many years.  It is not an argument that it is possible to win with them.  Since, I not only want my pots to last a long time, I also want to be able to move them from time to time and, at that size anything heavier than plastic, fully laden, I have no chance of shifting without pressing into action a sack barrow.  Given we are in the fens and drainage is key the driveway/outside seating area is gravelled.  Gravel is a little less than ideal for a sack barrow.  Plastic it is then.  I do need to try and reduce the small pot watering and a few things really would benefit from a bigger pot.  If my friend comes round I shall revert to “what these old things?   They pre-date Greta”.   It’s always worked with shoes!

Tomorrow is forecast to be cooler so I am hoping to find some energy to do some proper weeding.  The tomato and mixed beds are in serious need.  As are the side beds but in the long one it is brambles and nettles which I had a half hearted attempt at today in order to safely pick gooseberries.  It worked in so far as the nettles and brambles didn’t get me.  Obviously the gooseberries did.  A rose had a good old go as well.  Vicious they are!  You try and look after their every need and they go for you at every available opportunity.

I went to visit my parents so as to avoid either garden or housework in this heat.  I found my mother in the garden weeding and she made me a cup of tea in a far tidier kitchen than my own.  It’s just embarrassing the way octogenarians put one to shame!  Can’t they take it easy so us young ‘uns (ok, a couple of decades or so younger ones) can look good or at least a little better?