Greening up

It's strange for the garden to be turning greener at this time of year, rather than going brown; but the recent rain, some of it heavy, has encouraged plants to get a second wind.  The courgettes have started producing again, and the lawn is now looking more like itself than it has for a few months.  The rain has occasionally been accompanied by thunder, and together those have kept me indoors at times, but some dry spells in the past few days have allowed me to get outside.  Jobs have included making a start on cutting the long hedge (big leylandii, some too big for me to reach the back) - a layer of cardboard has been put down covering the path alongside the trees, and this is being gradually covered by the clippings as a weed suppressant.  For the time being I've left the ivy that is flowering through the leylandii in parts, to provide nectar for the insect population; a couple of years ago we had a great many red admiral butterflies enjoying it.

Male common blue butterfly

- with wings open

Butterflies have done better this year, and they continue to come to the garden; this week's spot was a male common blue which was around for a couple of days.

Birds are also about, albeit in smaller numbers in the moulting season; a robin has been showing interest in my hedge clipping.  Aside from the wild birds, young pheasants and red-legged partridges, brought in by a local estate for shooting, flock regularly in the field beyond us and occasionally wander in.  One day 20 partridges filed through the garden and stood on the summerhouse veranda for a bit until I gently moved them on (the summerhouse door was open and, although they weren't looking as though they were going to explore inside, I thought it best to discourage them from any such thought). 

One day I found a little toadstool in the lawn; a few hours later it had entirely disappeared.  I can see how they came to be associated with the fairies.

Autumn, suddenly

After a much warmer than usual summer, suddenly it’s autumn.  On the second-last morning of August for the first time this year we had condensation on the outside of the bedroom windows – always a sign of the cooler weather kicking in.  The fourth heatwave was a bit of an anticlimax; one or two warm days, but then a chilly wind from the east cooled things down considerably, and I did briefly consider putting on my winter gardening jacket one afternoon.  A few showery days turned to more persistent rain, and this week is more wet than not.  It’s all good for the garden, which desperately needs any rain it can get.

Apple and plum trees

The leaves of the plum tree are always the first to turn, and it makes a striking contrast with the big apple tree next to it, with its still-green leaves and huge fruit.  The early eating apples are much smaller but also plentiful (sadly, they aren’t good keepers); several houses in the village are giving their fruit away as there is so much.

Autumn and winter veg is starting to appear in the kitchen garden: leeks, winter cabbage, radicchio, pak choi, hardy herbs, in addition to the sprouting broccoli and kale that have been growing for several weeks now.  There are still some French beans, and I planted out a few little lettuce seedlings today, into a surprisingly warm soil, for a late crop.  There’s a row of carrots and some beetroot that need to be dealt with, and the courgettes are still limping along; and in the greenhouse the tomato crop has been good.

We have set up a bird table near the summerhouse, and the robin who lives down there has been enjoying having food put out for him (or her).  But it’s that time of year when birdlife seems to go quiet; perhaps some of the residents are already starting to migrate to warmer parts of the country or they’re moulting and staying in hiding.  A fatball put out a couple of days ago has gone untouched, and there are now only two or three sparrows coming to the patio for food whereas a couple of weeks ago we had nearly 20 at a time.  After two or three months away, Lefty the lame woodpigeon returned the other day to poke around one of the flowerbeds; we hope he’ll stay for the winter.

There are a few butterflies still about; a small copper was resting today on the winter savory.

Small copper butterfly