Glorious Storm

Monday 17 July 2017

Very unusually for July, our first day back at home was rainy, with a thunderstorm over Sunday night.  It was fantastic!  Suddenly cool and fresh, and despite our plans for making like cabbage all day on the sofa, we found ourselves digging the garden, checking how everything was, and weeding round the vegetable beds.

 The little herb bed is doing alright, although not as productive as last year

 This is my one and only comfrey plant, grown from seed.  It is at the end of the grey-water pipe, to encourage it to grow and spread.  Comfrey is an excellent ground cover in Forest Gardens, it has long roots which draw up minerals from deep in the earth, and it can be cut several times a year to add to mulch and distribute those minerals into the top soil.  So I'm encouraging it all I can.

 The little hugel bed by the big olive tree: strawberries, artichokes and a fig tree in the background.

 The vegetable beds, after weeding.  The beds had stayed reasonably clear, but the walkways between had become overgrown with metre-high grasses and thistles.  The rain loosened the earth so they could be pulled out.

 Perhaps the best established new tree - a Black Locust: nitrogen-fixer, bee attractor and shade tree.  All the locusts have done well, I think we'll put more in this winter to encourage a canopy over more of the garden in due course.

 My blackberry plant struggling to make blackberries, despite being at the end of the irrigation system and a bit droughty.

This is just a few of the sweet potato sprouts we'd left on the windowsill for our week away - we came back to vines growing over the dining table like in sleeping beauty, so Dave planted most of them after the rain.