I'll earth my spuds with sheep's wool!
We’ve had a few wet weeks and, true to the Hebrides, it has been cold and windy as well. I lost the first lot of runner beans I planted out. It was my fault as I was in too much of a hurry! Fortunately, some trailing geraniums
I'd planted out in the window boxes survived. My excuse was that when they arrived as big plug plants I just had nowhere to put them so I planted them up and tucked the pots somewhere out the wind. They lost the base leaves but are doing well now. The onions and ‘Pink Fir Apple’ potatoes are leaping away in the paddock that was Piggie’s home; the soil, shall we say, is very enriched! Who knows how they’ll do. I’ll earth the potatoes with either straw from the chicken housing or sheep’s fleece to see how it works. We’re coming up to shearing and there’s always fleece too soiled to spin. I’ve sown some show dahlias and
the plants are now in individual pots and staked; it was just a whim as I don’t have the nerve to enter shows: I think the stress would kill me! The sweet peas are starting to climb and they’re my pure delight, I do get seduced by names and this year I’ve planted the new one, 'Pink Pearl', just because my much-loved pug is called Black Pearl.
I also ordered sweet potato 'slips'. I’ve never grown them before but we enjoy eating them. I've got the plants growing on in large pots on the kitchen windowsill and they’re doing well. Now the nights are warmer I’m going to plant them in the polytunnel and wait and see what happens.
The days here are lengthening
and I can often be found in the polytunnel late into the night, and in July it can be 1am in the morning and quite light enough to work outside. At that time of night the colours and scents of the flowers often seem more intense. It always puts me in mind of the line in John Masefield’s poem August, 1914:
‘bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light’.