A MUGGY START TO SEPTEMBER

It’s been a while since the last blog post, so much so that summer left, autumn arrived and now summer is back – 19c at night!

Let’s get the bad news out of the way; the harvest of crops has been very poor this year, with even the sunflowers disappointed. I don’t think it helped being away for a couple of weeks and no-one watering the garden.

I have harvested absolutely nothing from the broad bean plants, tomatoes or cauliflowers. Next year I might just concentrate on fewer plants, probably just tomatoes, broad beans and sunflowers.

The birds have made use of the few sunflowers that flowered well, and they are now returning to the garden in bigger numbers after the summer moult.

Indeed a large flock of house sparrows is roosting in the ivy and other climbing wall plants that cover a small section of the house, but most of next door’s front facing wall.

I don’t know if any other small birds are in the same roost yet, but perhaps this will become a regular haunt for them, as long as next door don’t chop it all down!

Young robins, some with red breast feather emerging, blue tits, great tits and dunnocks are all now coming back in to the garden, although blackbird visits are few and far between.

There does seem to be a number of big slugs that venture in the garden on damp nights, some much bigger than I ever thought they would get.

I presume these are some of the new type of slugs being found in increasing numbers in the UK, so I’m hoping some hungry hedgehogs are close by.

NO AUGUST HEATWAVE AGAIN?

Summer is definitely here in meteorological terms, but the actual weather is not living up to what the calendar says.

Apart from the odd few days of warmth it’s been fairly mediocre and often cloudy and damp.

The garden hasn’t been growing as quickly as normal, particularly the tomatoes and sunflowers – the latter suffering some damage in the strong winds recently.

The birds are not regular visitors, with only the odd dishevelled looking adult robin, fledgling robin chick, blackbird or swopping swallow seen.

They will be expected to ‘improve’ their attendance in the coming weeks, as the adults finish their moulting.

It feels as if autumn is waiting in the wings and summer knows this, and has given up on delivering something like summer weather.

Only time will tell, but time is running out for some proper sunny and warm weather.