copyright 2017 Tish Farrell
Six Word Saturday ~ Please visit Debbie at Travel With Intent for more six-worder photo posts.
Gardens
Monday Magic ~ Today In My Wenlock Garden
Good heavens! This morning we woke to frost. The windscreens of the cars parked across the road were definitely glinting whitely. But there was bright sunshine too, lighting up the last of the leaves on the lime trees. They looked like great golden flares.
And since the temperature was much keener today than yesterday, sun notwithstanding, my cooking thoughts turned to making Greek lentil soup. While it was it was cooking I went out in the garden to snap whatever was blooming.
Extraordinary, isn’t it. We’ve had vicious gales, heavy rain and yet on the 30th day of October we still have sweet peas on the back fence. There are also masses of buds on the Morning Glories, though when they do open, it’s a half-hearted show of the decidedly shivery. I’m not sure why they waited till October to get going.
The real stars are geranium Rozanne, now in its second or third flowering, and the little border of coral and shell pink Hesperantha; pull off the lilies’ spent stems and more burst forth.
So welcome to my autumn garden and all that’s still flourishing there. Frost, what frost?
Copyright 2017 Tish Farrell
Still Blooming Up At The Allotment
N.B. There will be a brief break in transmission at Writer On The Edge, so I won’t be talking to you for a while. Will be back soon though.
Six Word Saturday In the meantime, please visit Debbie. She has a cracker of a photo for today’s 6WS.
The Changing Seasons ~ September ~ In The Garden Early This Morning
Bright and early do not figure in my repertoire these days, at least not if it means vacating the bed. This morning, though, if there had been larks, I would have been up with them. Just before 7 am the light was magical. It was a case of grabbing cardie and camera, and setting off in my nightie (black silk in case you wanted to know, and so chic with scarlet woolly, motley scarf and green rubber clogs). It had to be done though, and just as well there were no neighbours to see, or early morning walkers on the field path. So here are the pix, hot off the memory card.
Out in the garden Teasing Georgia was all dewy buds and drooping petals. She’s having a second flowering, although this time round the roses have a slumberous air even when freshly opened. As if to say, ‘Don’t like us too much. We’re not staying long’.
Over the fence in the field the light is golden. For the first time I notice the change in leaf colour in the wood on the hill. I also notice that the farmer looks to have sown the field with a green manure after harvesting the wheat. If so, heavens be praised. It’s about time the land had a real nutrient fix along with the chemical cocktails. The speed the seedlings are growing I’m guessing it’s a mix of rye grass and mustard. We’ll see.
Our garden is long and narrow, and several steps up from the house. At the top corner we have a gate onto the field path, and just over the fence we have our ‘guerrilla garden,’ planted with insect pleasing plants in mind and to make some reparation for all the pesticides used on the far side of the path. I’m making a similar unofficial planting along the outside of our neighbours’ fence. A floral gallery approach to gardening. We could also call it a flood alleviation measure, given the field’s tendency to create run-off. At the moment it is the season of Michaelmas daisies and tiny russet crab apples, along with the last of the sweet peas, sunflowers, helenium and rudbeckia. Most of the year I leave the border to its own devices, apart from some thistle, nettle and couch grass removal. It gives us a lot of pleasure through the changing seasons.
Another summer-long feature that has dominated the garden chez Farrell is Project Shed. He who has been building it, aka Graham, has finally finished the job apart from having the electrics expertly checked. He has built it from scratch from his own design, including re-purposing next-doors’ cast-off windows and door glass from another chum. The curved railway truck roof is both a nod to the fact that the Great Western Railway, before Mr. Beeching killed it, once ran across our road, and also to reduce the shed’s height so it doesn’t loom over our neighbours. Now that he has practised I think I must insist on one for me – a cosy hideaway in which to muse and snooze, and write word or two. Beside the gate would be nice…I could watch the field grow, the bees in the guerrilla garden and the comings and goings of rooks…
The Changing Seasons: September Please visit Max to see his fab September gallery, and to share your own changing seasons photos.
copyright 2017 Tish Farrell
Look Out For The Giant Sunflower!
Out of the blue it came, a sunflower the size of a small tree, and towering over my bed of dwarf French beans. I think I must have a mouse or bird to thank for dropping a seed from someone else’s plot in my compost heap, whence it was transported to the bean bed early in the summer. I have certainly never grown a monster like it. Anyway, its suddenly overbearing presence hasn’t deterred the beans – a variety called Ferrari which have been more than living up to their name.
I’ve read conflicting reports as the companionability of sunflowers and beans, some sources saying that climbing beans will grow up a natural trellis of sunflowers, others saying that bush beans and sunflowers both should, and should not be grown together. Ah well. All I can say is beans and sunflower are doing well, the beans still producing even as autumn approaches, and despite some chomping by slugs. But it goes to show, anything can happen out on the plot.
Still Life Up At The Allotment
Star Turn ~ Echinops
Presents Up At The Allotment
Yesterday’s post about goings on in and around the allotment and the fact our planet is now totally polluted by Roundup was a drearily disturbing topic. Today the allotment came up with floral fireworks, and a jug full of asters. Presents!
At lunchtime as I was on the plot, watering my peas and beetroot, fellow allotmenteer Siegfried came by. He was pushing a wheelbarrow full of produce – courgettes, runner beans, and a ton of red currants. I said he looked like a mobile vegetable stall. He told me it was destined for tomorrow’s Country Market – the Thursday morning local produce stall under Much Wenlock’s Corn Exchange.
Then he said would I please do him a favour, and go to his plot and pick as many asters as I wanted He said he had already picked masses for the market, but was afraid the rest would go to waste. He told me not to forget.
A little later I saw him go by my polytunnel. His arms were filled with sheaves of asters. What a wonderful sight – Siegfried in bloom, and I didn’t have my camera. And so on my way home I stopped for a greedy harvesting in the aster plot. And now I’m passing on Siegfried’s gift. All of which is to say, you meet some nice folk up at the allotment.
5 Minutes With An Artichoke And A Red-Tailed Bumblebee ~ Regular Random
Frequently Flying Scientist, Desley Jane, is a very talented photographer. Macro mode is a particular speciality, and especially when it comes to making delicious little cakes impossibly tempting. This week she has quite a different subject for her ‘Regular Random’ slot. So please visit her and join in the challenge. These are the rules:
- choose a subject or a scene
- spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
- try to see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
- have fun!
- tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to this post
My five minutes was devoted to some allotment artichokes. The sun was full on, the artichoke flower rather too tall, and the wind kept gusting, so the outcome is definitely random. Nice performance by the pollen dusted bumblebee though.
How Many Hoverflies In An Opium Poppy?
No, it’s not a joke question, but there’s clearly a lot of satisfaction going on in these photos. So many hoverflies, and different kinds too. Also photographer satisfaction – in that I managed to capture them so I could show you. Then there’s gardener satisfaction too – always something new to discover out in the garden, with or without camera. The only problem is I’m sure Ark is going to ask if I know what species they are. Nope, I don’t, but here’s the place to find out, which further adds to my satisfaction, because I can now provide this very fascinating link – at least as far as hoverfly lovers are concerned.
