It has rained consistently here for the last couple of days. It is July! its terrible, everything is thoroughly soaked. But thankfully this morning it seems to have stopped raining and seems a little brighter, hopefully it will pick up. Below is the rainfall from Gurteen (just over the road from where we live) for the day before yesterday 7th July, and yesterday (second below) wasn't much better. According to Met.ie most of the monthly rainfall totals were above their Long-Term Average
In our garden, things are happening, we have picked our first peas, the tomatoes are still green but expanding, the gherkins and cucumbers are on the way. We have broccoli in the middle of the leaves. We picked more strawberries bringing up our total weight of strawberries produced to over 11 Kilos and I think the time is nearing to dig up more potatoes. We will have a busy few days ahead. We are taking next week off work so we will be busy.
Gardening is not all strawberries and roses, some negative items, several of the broccoli leaves have been devoured by some cabbage white butterfly caterpillars. The culprits were removed and left on the bird table to meet their demise, all part of the cycle of life. Some of our strawberries are being eaten by snails and the damp weather isn’t helping, some of the hidden and hard to get at fruit is rotting on the plant, thankfully not many we were a bit lazy with weeding this year and we planted a couple or rows a bit close together making them hard to get at. We did a big weeding session about a week ago which included a good tidy up of the plants. I notice this morning it’s time to pick lovely fruit again.
The rain is not helping but it is removing the necessity to water outside which with the hosepipe ban has been time consuming. That said, since the National Water Conservation Order was implemented back on the 8th June the weather has deteriorated and we have not really had to water too much with our water cans. The good news is today the hosepipe ban has been lifted. Thankfully from a water supply perspective over the past couple of weeks there has been above average rainfall in many areas of the country. This has resulted in the recovery of some of the water supplies.
Positively and thankfully there are lots of positives, next week we have no work. The gardening guru is planning some ‘drives’ around the country. Due to the Covid-19 crisis we are staying at home for now at least. We will be gardening, admiring our flowers, and reaping our harvest of fruit and vegetables. We will be going for drives/day trips around the country.
Comments