A crescendo of heat and the start of another season
Monday 11 July
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The evening dog walks have shifted in emphasis. No longer do the dogs have a dip in the stream as they career past, we are now essentially just meandering down to the water’s edge for them to immerse themselves up to their ears. They shake cold droplets all over me, and then we gently saunter home through the long grass.
Tuesday 12 July
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No-mow May is now a distant memory but my front lawn is still a veritable ecosystem of grasses, daisies and wild scabious. I have absolutely no doubt that the neighbours are appalled, but as the palette turned from perfume-advert daisy meadow to rough gold, I find such joy in it. The crumbling front wall is draped with Gloire de Dijon roses and their only-just off-white colour chimes perfectly with the seed heads.
Wednesday 13 July
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The benefit of knowing a piece of landscape intimately is that you notice difference. There are some stark differences, worrying consequences of the heatwave perhaps. Streaks of yellow in amongst the trees where foliage is dying. Cracks appearing in the fields on the other side of the village which grow maize every year and are sprayed more often than I can count. But the changes I notice are more subtle. The first hazel in the hedge. The berry-purple pf the hips on the Rosa glauca. Should these things be happening in the middle of July? I have only just packed away my jumpers and it feels as if the harvest season is on the other side of this hot spell.
Thursday 14 July
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Can you believe I still have things in the greenhouse? No, they aren’t loving it, however much I water them. It is simply scorching. Why are they then? Because I have had more slugs this year than I have ever known before and I fear that if I remove my precious plants from the safety of the staging, that they will simply be shorn off at the base. My heart would not take it. I have lost too many this year already. The safety is relative of course; I know there is a slug somewhere amongst my aquilegia seedlings because I can see the nibble marks and the glittering slime in the mornings. But I choose between the lesser of two evils and everything comes out and are placed in long gravel trays in the shade of the hazel hedge.
Friday 15 July
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Supper in the field. Usually it would be pizza but there is a glut of courgettes that need eating (those I can hide from Puppers anyway, she has developed a taste for them) and so we roast them with elephant garlic and thyme, then layer with tomato sauce and mozzarella. Lots and lots of mozzarella. Everything tastes better with woodsmoke.
Saturday 16 July
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I head out with the pack at 6am to make the most of the cool of the morning. The dahlias patch has been neglected for some time, mostly because I have been waiting and waiting for the dyer’s chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria) which is growing alongside them to burst into flower. It flowered, then flopped all over the new plantings of dahlias which I hadn’t planned on planting but I was seduced by a late season sale. I find more and more that I am trying to apply new learning to my old gardening ways. Usually, I would just dig them out; they are massive plants and they are all entangled and inter-twined with their button flowers getting caught on each other. But the area in which they are planted is some of the poorest soil I have, being where the hoggin was tipped when the paths were laid and then I just put green waste from the council on top in no dig beds. The green waste is great for structure but terrible in terms of life. Disturbing the soil by digging out plants and then leaving the earth bare and exposed, especially in this heat, would be doing it no good at all. And so I cut every single stem individually with secateurs. It takes a very long time…
