Another heatwave

 Currently in the midst of another heatwave. Apparently, it's going to get to about 30 degrees tomorrow. I'm watering the garden and allotment every day, early in the morning (before it gets too hot). The stuff growing on the allotment (pumpkins, squash and some fruit bushes) all seems ok, for now. But some of the small trees in the garden seem to be struggling a bit, the leaves are drying out and getting scorched by the sun. I'm really hoping they survive through the summer.

We need some rain, I think. Not just the odd, little shower now and then, which is what we've been getting for the last month or so, but a proper rainy day (or few days, ideally). Having a bit of water once a day is obviously not enough.

Optimistically, I'm hoping this is the last heatwave this year. Personally, I think anything over 23 degrees is too hot, so 30 degrees is horrendous. Too hot to do anything, too hot to sleep at night. I'm not a big fan of summer, generally. Autumn is much more comfortable.  

Little update

 Haven't written on here for so long! To be honest, I forgot all about this blog...is blogging even still relevant? Who knows. Basically, life and general chaos got in the way. Other things have taken up my time. 

Anyway, I might try to do this again, a bit more regularly. 

It's currently very warm and humid, pollen levels are very high and my allergies are being very annoying. We're basically in summer now, the Summer Solstice is actually still a few days away, but nevermind. The garden is full and probably a bit over-grown, but all the trees are doing well.

We've started to get some gooseberries, blackcurrents and raspberries ripening, also a few strawberries. Apples and pears are still tiny, but will hopefully continue to grow. All the roses seem to be doing very well this year, and the herb garden I planted recently is working out well. (I've started using the rosemary to make a sort of potion to thicken my hair a bit....it's really just rosemary and boiled water, but it seems to be helping a bit.) Actually, I should probably make some more soon, haven't got much left now.

The badgers are still visiting, occasionally. There are still lots of birds in the garden, generally being quite noisy. The rooks, jackdaws and magpies are slowly getting used to us, they will actually come down to the feeder while I am in the garden, as long as I don't get too close.

Creeping towards autumn

 I know it's still July, so essentially still the middle of summer, but it feels almost autumnal at the moment. It's chilly (I've put a cardigan on today), raining heavily and getting quite windy. The blackberries have started to appear in the hedges down the lane and in our garden, although they are still very small and green, as are the berries on the hawthorn and rowan. 

I'm not complaining about this at all, we had a heatwave a couple of weeks ago, and that was more than enough summer weather for me! Autumn is definitely my favourite season. I've vaguely started my autumn preparations...ordered some firewood (for delivery in September) in case it gets cold suddenly, making sure everyone in the house has suitable clothing and footwear for cooler, wetter weather etc. This is possibly just because I get a bit over-enthusiastic about being organised, or because I get over-excited about autumn generally.

I'm almost ceratin that we will get more hot weather over the next month or so, and I will complain about summer lasting too long, being too hot and humid etc. But at the moment I am enjoying the slow, subtle hints that autumn is coming.

Jackdaws

I may have mentioned before that we have jackdaws living/nesting on the roof, they have been here since we moved in. A few weeks ago, I had the very upsetting experience of finding a dead one in the garden. Well, actually I found it in a bin in the garden. The bin was otherwise empty (we don't use it for anything), there was no lid on it. Why would a bird go into an empty bin? And why wouldn't it it just fly out? Did it go in there to die in peace, away from everything else? Anyway, it was horrible. I cried about it for hours, not even sure why it upset me so much, but it did.

 Since then, one jackdaw has finally ventured into our garden, occasionally. It either sits on the roof of the workshop, or sometimes actually comes to the bird feeder and has some food. It never stays for very long. Now, this maybe that it has to come to the feeder for food, as it's been so hot and dry here, that it can't find other food easily. However, it could also be that it finally feels safe/comfortable enough to come into the garden, which I hope is the case. 

 I am determined to make friends with the jackdaws. I was a bit concerned that a dead one in our garden would mean that they would hate us, but apparently not.

Baby birds

 Feels like summer at the moment, it's been sunny and warm (sometimes too hot) for a couple of weeks now. There have been a lot of baby birds in the garden, mostly (very noisy) starlings, Although we have also seen a baby robin, some young sparrows and a young blue tit. The baby starlings like to sit on top of the bird feeder and shout at their parents until they come and feed them. It's adorable, but very loud.

A very sweet family of geese visited the garden the other day, 2 adults and four babies. Our neighbour called my husband to let us know they were in our garden. We watched them for a few minutes, they wanted to get through our garden to the field at the back, but the wire fence that was put up a couple of years ago was stopping them. Poor things looked very confused, then the babies started to wander off away from the parents. So, I went out and pulled up the fence (which was not put there by us, but it's on our garden boundary), making a big gap at the bottom. Luckily, after a bit of searching for their babies, all the geese went under the fence on their way to wherever they were going. The big gap/hole shall remain in the fence...as I don't want any wildlife getting stuck in a stupid wire fence. (I'm very proud of myself for making a hole in the fence to help some geese!)

One of the baby geese

 

Also, actually saw a deer in the field at the back last night. First time we've manged to see one in there! My son spotted it, while looking out of his bedroom window.

Blossom and wildflowers

 It's been ages since I've written anything here! I've been really caught up with working through the last essays for my degree (nearly done...just need to finish the final essay), and we've just had the bedroom re-plastered, so about to start decorating in there. We are sleeping downstairs while that is all being sorted. The other night, I heard a noise outside. Looked out of the window to see three badgers rummaging around under the bird feeder. They wandered off under the fence quite quickly, as I think I surprised them by appearing at the window.

We have a fair amount of blossom on some of the little fruit trees this year, so might actually get some fruit! Although, the trees are still quite small, so maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic. Even of we do get some fruit, the liklihood is the birds will get to it all before we do.

We scattered lots of wildflower seeds around the lawn earlier this year (and last year). It looks like a few are starting to grow. There are definitely some large thistles coming up in various places around the garden, which is quite nice, I think goldfinches like thistle seeds. Not planning on mowing the lawn any time soon, so hopefully some more wildflowers will appear in the next couple of months.

Vegetable planting

 I have written on here before about how I am a fairly lazy gardener. Well, that is still the case. Finally managed to weed some of the raised beds (which were all full of grass), and plant out some vegetables. I haven't planted a lot this year, as I'm expecting that we will have another heatwave over the summer, and possibly water restrictions put in place. This is what happened last year and most of the vegetables and some plants ended up dying. So, I have only planted some garlic, a lot of onions and some potatoes. The garlic seems to be doing quite well, so far. The onions have just started to grow, but the potatoes aren't doing anything yet.

As the badgers seem to visit our garden most nights, I was a little concerned about them digging up everything we'd planted. But, apparently if you lay holly branches over any new bulbs you plant, it deters various creatures from digging them up. I tried this, so far it seems to have worked. (I don't really want to put netting or anything over the vegetables, as I'm worried about birds (or other creatures) getting tangled in it.)

The trees all seem to be doing quite well, some of them have a bit of blossom on, some have small leaves and a few still just have buds. I'm not sure we'll get any fruit off of any of them this year, as they are all still quite small. But we shall see.