The garden in late June

A wet June but it hasn't all been bad. The pears are amazing; for once I thinned then and it seems to have paid dividends as the fruit is developing nicely and we should have a good crop.

The artichokes always look beautiful and add structure.

Stargazer lilies and decorative poppies outside the kitchen door add colour and the courgettes are delicious - we've just eaten some!

 

Fruit - A new discovery

One of the things I love about living here is the abundance of fruit. The cherries kick off the year and we then have fresh fruit right through to about late September. The strawberries this year were abundant - for three weeks we were picking between 500gms and 1 kilo every two days. Then came the raspberries; again three weeks of picking a huge amount but I didn't weigh them (difficult when they are already eaten!). Now we are eating mirabelles (both yellow and red) - not quite so abundant this year but never mind - and the figs have just started to ripen (shhh - don't tell anyone!).

In the vegetable patch I have water melons with golf ball size fruit - I planted 20 seedlings and about 15 are doing well so we'll be feasting on water melon later in August. I also have 15 regular melons but they were planted late so are still developing.

The peach tree is heavy with fruit which will be picked shortly and the pear trees also promise a good harvest.

But the biggest surprise this week was a new discovery - bear in mind we've lived here for over 10 years now. Two days ago I was inspecting the bees and suddenly noticed that the tree behind the hives was full of a small plum like fruit, green/yellow in colour. Definitely not a mirabelle and the taste is delicious. I'm guessing a plum of some sort and am not too bothered which sort so long as it tastes good! Harvesting them will be fun though as they really are a metre from the hives!

Last night two friends came for supper and I had approximately no notice. The joy of being able to go into the garden to find supper. We feasted on French beans cooked with onions, salad and cucumber. We decided that courgettes would be too much. For pudding we feasted on ice cream and honey straight from the comb. Perfect!

Water priorities

We've not had any rain for a while now and the heat is currently over 30 degrees. The lawn has turned brown and the garden is suffering. So what should we water as a priority?

First of all, forget about the lawn. So it's brown; so what? That means it doesn't need mowing and as soon as there's a decent fall of rain the green will come back.

Brown lawns don't matter but the pear trees are kept well watered and the plants in the beds benefit.

Priority should be given to fruit trees, the vegetable patch and the greenhouse (if there's anything still in it). When you water do it properly. It's best to water in the evening so that it doesn't evaporate so much and the plants will have a chance to use it. They also won't suffer from leaf scorch if their leaves are splashed.

A lot of my vegetables are planted through a plastic fibre and I put the hosepipe underneath this so that, again, the water goes into the soil and doesn't have a chance to evaporate. If evening watering is impossible then this can be done during the day although it's not ideal.

Holding the hosepipe over the plant (be it vegetable or flower) for a couple of seconds is not going to do much good. Think about it: if you are thirsty you drink an entire glass of water - or two even; a plant is the same. The soil around it needs to be well soaked, not splashed. (Bear in mind too that if the soil is dry it takes longer to soak in.)

Lavender thrives in dry weather.

We tend to give the fruit trees a dustbin of water each once or twice a week. The roots are further down and they suffer less - but don't be fooled; if they don't get water they will start to show signs of stress, not this year but next year or the year after.

Flower beds - well, this is a matter of personal opinion. Personally I only water these if absolutely necessary as I give priority to food and if the moat dries up again then these will have to take their chances. However, flower beds represent an investment of both time and money and also provide food for insects as well as hideaways for birds; it would be a pity to lose them. Again, if you water your flower beds do it thoroughly and either early in the morning or in the evening. We use a spray system and each bed gets approximately half an hour once a week. They all get thoroughly mulched each autumn and this helps to maintain moisture during the summer. We also have a lot of plants that flower in May and June so by July they don't need much watering. Again, if they die back now it doesn't matter.

This flower bed is watered twice a week for 30 minutes. The grass benefits too!

The most important thing is to think about your watering and make sure that every drop counts. The rivers around us have dropped very low again and I get infuriated when I see the farmers watering throughout the day - at least 30 per cent of the water evaporates and with a bit of forethought and, yes, extra effort they could set the system to water during the night. Once again the level of the moat has dropped dramatically in the past week and although I don't think it will dry out again this year it does make us think a bit.