All Visitors Welcome (well almost all)

In June we were crying out for rain, now I’m wondering if it’s ever going to stop. My water butts are all full and overflowing – I could do with my own reservoir!

I’ve been a bit upset about the slow progress of my tomatoes this year. Friends have, cruelly I would say, been sending me photos of their ripening fruits for weeks now. I only had flowers, but look, mine are just late developers!

Mind you, they’ll probably succumb to one of the numerous blights or moulds that can afflict tomatoes, particularly when there’s a lot of rain at this stage in the year. I’ve also been concerned about my sweet peppers – it’s the first time I’ve tried growing them. Something likes eating the leaves and there wasn’t much sign of any action going on in the fruit department – until yesterday, when I spotted the minutest flower bud. Can you see it? My eyesight isn’t good, but it’s obviously been there a little while. It might be too late in the season now for anything to come of it, especially on account of the lack of sunshine, but I’ll keep you posted.

Now, someone who isn’t having any problems producing fruit, is a good friend of mine. She has a plum tree which has excelled itself this year, so she’s overrun with the things. The other morning she brought me a lovely jar of plum jam, a number of cartons of stewed plums for the freezer and 2 kilos of fresh ones. I stewed most of them but then started thinking about how much I enjoy rhubarb gin. One thing led to another and hey presto I found a recipe for plum gin. It specified a 2 litre sealable jar would be required. I’m not one of those domestic goddesses who has shelves full of Kilner jars for homemade preserves and chutneys, so the spaghetti got rehomed. I set too with the lovingly prepared fruit (removing all the stones does get a bit tedious), some caster sugar and most important of all, gin. I have to shake the jar every few days to make sure everything keeps mixed together and in a few weeks I should have my plum gin and some boozy fruit to eat with ice cream. The only thing is my jar doesn’t seem to be completely airtight, because when I shake it a little bit of gin escapes, so I could end up with a jar full of mouldy plums and wasted gin. At the moment it looks a bit like something you’d find in a science lab soaking in formaldehyde. But you know what they say – you learn by your mistakes – well, most people do. I tend to make them over and over again. I’ll let you know the outcome in my next blog.

We have had some visitors to the garden who haven’t made themselves too popular. Now you know me, I love my wildlife and normally get very excited when nests are being built in my garden. However, a pair of loved up wood pigeons clearly had their sights set on my wisteria. I wouldn’t mind this so much, except they had decided on siting their love nest directly above my back door and below my bedroom window. Luckily we spotted the signs early on so no nest or eggs were destroyed in persuading them to relocate. Wood pigeon eggs take 17 days to hatch and then it’s another 30+ days before the babies fledge. I think you will understand that I wasn’t keen on the prospect of a chorus of cooing from dawn onwards, before stepping into a pile of pigeon poo when I took Lily out in the back garden first thing. Our deterrent doesn’t look pretty but they’ve finally found a much more secluded spot to raise their little family.

And finally, I’ve had a beautiful visitor to my garden this week. I’ve joined another excellent FaceBook group – UK Dragonflies & Damselflies – you might remember the bee one I joined earlier in the year? Anyway, apparently it’s a Common Darter. I’ve never seen one in my garden before, so it’s certainly not ‘common’ as far as I’m concerned. Maybe my mini pond is doing the trick?