The most noticeable effects of the weather have been the lack of rain and the wind. The soil is bone dry and everything is struggling to keep going despite my watering attempts. The wind just adds to the problem. April was warm enough for any July, but now it’s gone back to ‘normal’ and we all feel cold.

Then a few nights ago there was a severe frost forecast. The bird bath was frozen solid the following morning. Having got caught out last year, I had been out after tea covering up everything that I thought might suffer. Potatoes, strawberries, acer, sunflowers. Pots and trays of bedding were brought inside, and  for the most part it worked.

The strawberries survived, the potatoes are only affected a bit. All the bedding survived, except the dahlias I forgot about! Unfortunately the pear tree that was full of potential pears has lost most of them. The jury’s still out on the plums and cherries which, like the pears, had looked set for a bumper crop this year.

There is rain forecast for the next few days, boy do we need it.

My next topic is tools, great when they are working OK but not so great when they’re not. My loppers, spring rake and pressure sprayer have all broken over the last few weeks.

Then there is the mower. When I got it out at the beginning of April it wouldn’t start. Having charged the battery overnight I was delighted and relieved to find that it started first time and I cut the grass without further mishap.

About 10 days later I decided to cut the grass again. Guess what? The mower wouldn’t start, so we put it on charge again. This time it only took 7 hours to fully charge, and I eventually finished cutting the grass at 7.30pm.

Now the question is, will it start next time? Watch this space.

Incidentally whilst I’m on the subject of things that don’t work, the central heating is playing up, the toilet overflow is dripping and I think the septic tank might be full, but hey-ho, at least Peter has mended the broken floorboard on the landing after only 4 years of waiting!

Last year the peas and strawberries got attacked very badly by the birds. Blackbirds like strawberries and wood pigeons like peas and pea shoots. I don’t like using netting as one year a blackbird got trapped and died in my strawberry bed, even though I had gone to great lengths to fix it securely.

This year we’ve tried to come up with a more bird friendly solution. The idea is to use canes and fleece to make a barrier around the crops, hopefully high enough to stop them walking or flying in, but open enough to allow an escape route if they did.

It sounded such an easy thing to do, but proved a lot harder in practice, particularly in a wind! Time will tell now as to whether it works. Once again, watch this space.

I’ve seen the bullfinch pair again which is good news, but sadly I found 2 dead blackbirds in my  water butts behind the shed. I’m not sure how this happened, as it never has before in the 13 years we’ve been here. Suffice to say I’ve now covered them up so it won’t be happening again.

So there we are, you’re up to date. Happy gardening.

It certainly felt good to be outdoors, and there were the first signs of some bulbs and hellebore flowers. Good.

The devastation wreaked by the mole was everywhere to be seen. Why does he attack my straight edges? The ground in places was like walking on marshmallows. Bad.

The only slightly encouraging thing was that he had completely gone from one area of the garden where last year he had been rampant. Proving that he does move on eventually. I just wish he’d move on to someone elses bit. Having said that, if he did he’d probably be dead. I saw my neighbour setting mole traps only a few days ago. Not for me, therefore more bad.

One of the apple trees is being attacked by something. Whatever it is it’s eating away at the bark. I’m not talking animal here, but some kind of disease. Ugly. I fear for it’s long term future.

I think one of the reasons is that many years ago at a previous house we had a plate glass window in the sitting room blow in during a storm. It happened around 6am so we were both in bed, but had it been later, someone could have been seriously hurt.

Needless to say I haven’t been in the garden today, because the wind is too strong and the wind-chill is seriously cold, taking several degrees off an already cold day. There is snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so prospects for getting out and about in the garden in the next few days are not good.

Not long after moving here, there was a very bad storm. It really was scarey and I feared for the house and more particularly the conservatory. Fortunately these were both spared, but a couple of things in the garden weren’t.

There was a lovely, mature viburnum near the garage, viburnum opulus ‘sterile’, commonly known as the Snowball Tree. It was blown almost horizontal by the gale, and despite our best efforts we were unable to save the main part of the plant. Fortunately the little bit that was left intact, seemed unwilling to give in, and over the years it has made a bit of a comeback.

We had the idea of training and pruning it into a ‘standard’ shape, but we feel after last year when it took another hammering in a storm, it’s top growth is too heavy for it’s slender stem, so we’re having a re-think on that one.

The other victim of the storm was one of our 3 old apple trees. They must have been 50 years old, and were just planted in a line at the back of the garage. The storm ripped the end one right out of the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it. Fortunately it didn’t fall on anything important.

You don’t realise how big a tree is until you see it laying down, and as trees go this wasn’t a particularly big one, yet it was still vast. Cutting it up and burning it was a major operation. Things like this are just a reminder not to under estimate the power of nature.

    

]]> http://ravendalehouse.com/2009/02/01/wind/feed/ 0 http://ravendalehouse.com/2009/01/17/apple-trees/ http://ravendalehouse.com/2009/01/17/apple-trees/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:43:29 +0000 Cloudybutnice http://ravendalehouse.com/?p=23 I might have been pleased with Billy the shed the other day, but I’m not so pleased with my apple trees today. Something is eating the bark from round the bottom of them. Could it be rabbits? I don’t know, I haven’t seen bunnies in the garden since last Spring and there are no droppings apparent on the ground, but something is certainly eating my trees.

We bought these 10 apple trees about 5 years ago so they’re just nicely getting into their stride, and we’ve had some tasty apples already. They make a lovely apple walk between the bench and the arch so we can’t do with losing them now. I need to protect them against whatever it is that is eating them alive.

It’s at times like these that I usually turn to Schweppes, a strange thing to do I know, but I’ve discovered that their plastic drinks bottles, topped and tailed, make excellent, free cloches. These have protected my young peas and other tender plants in the past, keeping them safe until they’re big enough to look after themselves.

Now I’ve discovered that these cloches cut down the side also make excellent protection collars for the bottom of small apple trees. I just hope I’ve caught the problem in time. Only time will tell. Watch this space.

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