Hot dry weather continues here in the south of Blighty – a place
normally known for its grey skies and rain-sodden demeanor.
During Saturday, the little plants disappeared from the table and baby greenhouse in the backyard. F assured me that they went to a good home in bigger pots in a greenhouse up at the allotment, and I would be invited to inspect them later in the week. She apparently spent the day mixing up some sort of growing medium for them (a quantity she later calculated to be around ¾ of a tonne of the stuff – handled bit by bit), and filling pots and arranging them and setting out the little plants in their new homes, and rigging and calibrating a watering system. I counted 5 round trips from home to allotment and back. I think she forgets things – her excuse was she couldn’t get it all into one wheelbarrow load.
In addition, some of the little spinach and tomatillo plants that were surplus to requirements were claimed by other growers and have found homes in other people’s gardens.
I get excited when I know that we are going to the allotment, but once we are there I like to explore and F gets a bit nervous about letting me out of her sight, so these days I only get taken on inspection tours and don’t spend hours overseeing the back-breaking stuff.
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| Inspecting Tomatoes, Aubergines, and Okra |
Baby squirrels are making life interesting at the moment –
they run all over the house roof early in the morning – playing chase with each other. They also run along the fences, across the
yards and play in the open heath space over the lane. There will be squashed squirrel on the lane one
of these days if they don’t learn some traffic sense really soon.
Baby crows, or at least the bolder one of two of them, have
also arrived in our back yard. The bold
one took no time at all to work out what food was and where to eat it from – no
nervous bouncing at it and dodging away again.
It hasn’t even learned to be wary of seagulls and elbows its way into
the melee. We imagine it’s parents
trying to explain about risk and danger and discovering they have a teenager
already. What is it about teenage brains
that makes them immune to appreciating the potential consequences of the risks
they take?
The same might be said of the grey squirrels.
I wouldn’t miss the grey squirrels (they have always frustrated me) but some
humans think they are cute. The same
humans might not be so enamored of rats for instance, and it was interesting to
be read a news item today about New Zealanders being largely united in their
determination to eliminate said rodents (and a range of mustelids) from their country:
New Zealand seeks to
exterminate predators to save native birds - BBC News I am told that feral cats are also on the hit list🙀
does the fox get enough water? he does look like he is not getting all he needs, water or food. I would be feeding him/her too. the allotment is looking great. when I was 9 we moved to kentucky and they called the little tomatoes tommytoes. I am thinking from the word tomaillas is where they got that. 60 years to figure that out.
ReplyDeletelove the leaves of the okra, the flowers and of course eating the okra. veggies have beautiful plants and flowers, like squash. all those trips with the wheel barrow are keeping F healthy
There are a lot of water troughs so he should be able to get enough water. We think he might have the mange bug and will get him some food supplements that might help with that.
DeleteFoxes do like dog meat Tigger. They are quiet fond of takeaway leftovers if the dwell in a town or city.
ReplyDeleteOur Mr Fox will get some wet dog food with 'drops'. I say no more.
DeleteOh my goodness, allotment fox is not looking at all healthy, quite a contrast to the well-nourished and glossy-furred specimen we sometimes see prowling around our Aberdeen neighbourhood.
ReplyDeleteGail is as ever impressed by F's efforts in the greenhouse and allotment. But I, Nobby, am pleased that my human is not a keen gardener and prefers instead to spend her time attending to my exercise any other needs.
Toodle-oo!
Nobby.
We think people have been poisoning rats locally and that it has been leaching into the fox population. 3 houses along has a fox den and the little foxes had been playing in their garden until a week or so ago when one by one the vixen, and then the littl'uns all suddenly died.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteHi Tigger... I have to say things are looking flourishing your end, despite the challenge of irrigation. Foxy is definitely in need of something a little extra; I'm with F, just a little but not too much. Mutual assistance and all that.
I start away from the sibling gathering later tomorrow afternoon. First stop, Dedham Vale. Then a saunter around the roads in a curving and only half-planned route south... I'll be in touch very soon! Hugs and wags YAM-aunty xxx
Good luck with your saunter Yam-Aunty. F said you telephoned last night.... I ate my dinner after that. I am being very picky about my dinners these days. furrings and purrings Mr T
DeleteI just couldn’t believe the weather we had. All over the uk
ReplyDeleteIt was warm and sunny most days.
I won’t miss the humidity.
I will miss pretty much everything else
All over and back home, with the photos to sort out? That was an absolute whirlwind but we are glad you enjoyed your visit. There is a lot of see here isn't there? Compared to the humidity in north parts of F's country and yours, here is pretty tame really.
DeleteOkra haa beautiful flowers. I don't find it edible, but I love the flowers.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers are beautiful aren't they? If we get nothing but the flowers F will be reasonably satisfied with the experiment. As for eating she uses it to make a sort of Carribean 'curry' with lots of tomato and Grenadan spices.
DeleteBeing predator free all sounds very grand, but I wonder if they will ever achieve it.
ReplyDeleteWe like the ideas that you clear and protect an area and let it be a nursery for breeding so that birds can spread out from there. They do the same with no-fish areas around UK and it really works for increasing fish stocks in the surrounding areas. In NZ if they keep working at it you could eventually have lots of those protected areas connected up - like corridors. Imperfect is better than doing nothing at all.
DeleteMange came to mind immediately. It's a killer but curable.
ReplyDeleteThe New Zealand pest eradication effort is a huge project. Humans have done so much damage with our carelessness.
I like the picture of Tigger surveying the crops - probably sizing up their edibility or otherwise - for a cat, that is.
Privately - about Mr Fox - - we thought so too. We will be putting out food with one of the remedies available from the kind people at a fox protection organization.
DeleteThe little plants doubled in size in 3 days! We should have had the greenhouse up and running long ago but F had been focused on her battle with bindweed in the outdoor garden, and getting all her crops established there. This year gardening seems to have been one battle after another, but we seem to be down to mere skirmishes now....let's hope I haven't spoken too soon.
ReplyDeleteyum Okra is nice but sadly not seen much here in the shops. Tigger looks like he's doing a good job of supawvising.
ReplyDeleteYou could probably grow them where you are - sunny side of the house or a solid fence.
Delete