2026/31 - July is a strange month

 On the one hand my town is bursting to the seams with tourists, on the other most people I know have left for other places. It makes for a strange couple of weeks. Still, visiting my garden is a recurring routine, (aren't they all 😂) and thankfully I still have water to give to my veg, despite the weeks without rain.

I've used my garden as an inspiration for my latest painting, for the upcoming exhibition in September. I wish I could say this cockerel is mine, but alas. I'd love to get me some chickens, but I will be sensible and will not. The responsibility for my senior dog is quite enough for now.

Yesterday she saw the resident beaver again, and this time realised it is quite a large animal. Eventhough the beaver immediately fled into the water of the sloot, Puck thought it very scary. All the way home she kept looking over her shoulder to make sure it didn't follow her home!

My wildflower meadow underneath the apple trees is attracting the insects, such as they are. The overcast skies of this last week has meant that I hardly see any. 

But the apples, plums and figs around my garden are doing well. It is always a race who will get the ripe figs, the birds or me. The birds always win...Unfortunately they just take one beak full and leave the rest...The plums are rock hard still.

But my friend has a plum tree which has a massive crop this year, and they are ripe, so she brought me a couple of kilos. I washed and pitted them, and then froze them.

But I had my own harvest...massive cucumbers, and the first three bland tomatoes.

I cannot eat that much cucumber, so I preserve the leftover in apple vinegar. It keeps for months.

Random pic: yesterday I had lunch on one of Rotterdam's roofs: Ted's, it is called. If ever you find yourself in the town of my birth, do search this out! It is an allotment on a roof, with a restaurant, very cool!

Okay, I'll leave you with some photos I took very early this morning, along the Brielse Maas.

Do visit my website at Renée Grashoff Schrijft , translator button provided, and have a lovely week, wherever you are.

Renée Grashoff 

2026/30 - A Drop in Temperature...hurray!

 After two weeks solid of over 30°C heat, the temperature has dropped more than 10 degrees overnight. It is a shock to the system, but my old system is geared for 21° in July, not 35°! In the South of my country, it reached 42° and especially the old folk suffered, and mortality rates were up by hundreds. If you are still denying climate change as a non-existent crisis, you have mud in your eye!

I had to water my garden daily, which is something I am not used to. Mind you, I only watered the veg and the Hydrangeas. The rest of Hunky Dory has to get its water from the water table...which has dropped worryingly low. In fact, we now have an official Water Shortage Crisis on our hands. Government is urging us not to water gardens, take showers of under 5 minutes and be extremely careful with open fire, unless we go the same route as Fontainebleau, France.

Having said this, I must say I am really pleased with how my frog pond is holding up. Despite the heat, I have not had to refill! Hurray!

But, as I said, I have watered my Hydrangeas. And even so, they greeted me with bedraggled heads every morning... The Solidago however, seem to love that heat, and thrive.

My Tomatoes and Cucumbers have overcome their slow start, and especially the Tomatoes are loaded with fruit. Unfortunately, their taste is a bit bland...I bought bio ones, nameless, and am disappointed. They taste no better than the supermarket ones, and I guess I am spoiled.

Loads of insects on the Fennel, great!

And the Bumble Bee Hotel is open for business!

Those Cardoons are humungeous! I sometimes hear passing cyclists commenting on them.

The Wild Carrot, which I hope will spread through that pink bed... My allotment neighbour Hans (88) has lots of spontaneous ones, I swear they are the ones I have sown!

These are his beans. He is very good with veg.

The Teasels in my garden (I let them do their thing) are getting ready to receive the bees.

This year I can greet my very first grapes. We'll see what colour they are, a complete surprise.

As are these Strawberries! Rather late in the season, but I don't mind 😀

Okay, this is it for this week. Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are, and do pass on my blog address if you've liked my posts.

Renée Grashoff 

2026/29 - Heatwave # 3 - help!

 It is getting boring, I know... I realise that I do go on about climate change, but it is hard to ignore. Sorry! Whilst in the South of France bushfires are causing mass evacuations for campsites, our grass verges are as dry and yellow as if we have moved our country and dropped it in the South of Europe. And we officially have the third heatwave of the year.

My roses are thriving in that heat, though. They are doing much better than myself, I wilt as soon as the temperature rises above 24°C...

So I cycle to Hunky Dory in the very early morning, often around 07.00 a.m. when I am the only one there. Well, except the birds and other animals that is.

This Red Admiral kept fluttering around my head, I think it was attracted to my hot pink hat. And when I watered my tin planters, a huge bright green grasshopper startled me by hopping almost into my face. I wanted to take a photo for you, but it had other ideas.

I bought the first marginal water plants, Polygonum bistorta. And that bright green grass-like reed in the pond is the Papyrus...it has survived, happy about that.

The Lathyrus is moving along the branch. But I think it is past its prime now, eventhough I deadhead it daily. 

 Still, it is very pretty, don't you think? I keep throwing the pods in other parts of my garden, next to the fences, in the hope the plant will shoot up there next year. Probably not, though. In my experience my plants only shoot up anywhere if they feel like it...

Like the gorgeous Wild Carrot...The seeds I sowed in my planter...not one carrot flower has shown itself. But in the corner, next to the small mound, they have come up spontaneously, and also on the tiny forecourt where I put my bycicle. Oh well...they are welcome.

In between heatwave 2 and 3, we had a storm...in other parts of the country they had hail, so big, that the stones destroyed greenhouses and dented cars.

In my part there was not a drop of the so much needed rain, just gusts of wind that blew down trees.

One of the casualties was my favourite Willow, along the river bank. When Puck saw it in the very early morning, she stared at it for a while. She knows something is different, I am sure.

I suppose I can be glad not the entire tree blew down. From a distance it looks insignificant, but I assure you that the branch is a meter in width.

Anyway...I'll be glad when it gets a bit cooler! It is nearing 30°C this entire week to come, and that simply is too hot for me, my dog and my garden. The Canna Lily on my balcony is loving it though.

I'll leave you with my newest painting. I have an exhibition coming up in September, so in between watering my plants and writing my book, I paint.

Have a lovely week, do visit my website to read the teaser for Moss at Renée Grashoff Schrijft and try to keep cool!

2026/28 - July Jubilations

 Week-long tropical heat has made some of my plants wilt, and others throw a party!

The bumblebees were having a party of their own on this gate crasher from my neighbour's plot. It takes the heat in its stride.

When the flowers are spent, it decks itself in lovely blood red berries, which then darken to deep purple.

There were at least 15 bees on it!
So it can stay.

Another neighbour has this Artichoke in his cold frame. This does not mind heat either.

Oh, and I finally mowed my grass! It certainly looks a lot better now! Did I tell you I bought an old fashioned hand mower? Which came in a flat pack as if it was a bookcase from IKEA? And which I put together myself, only to find out at the very last two nuts and bolts that the bloody pipe was bent? So those nuts and bolts were too short?

I was so frustrated that I did not have the strength to bend it into shape, that I bolted the bloody thing together with tie wraps. And it works perfectly fine. Only looks stupid.

A bit like my new frogless frog pond, in fact.

But hey, Waterlily is thriving and blooming, so who is complaining?

Don't let those clouds fool you! It was 29,5°C when I took that photo.

Proof!

I am looking into marginal pond plants to camouflage that ugly pondliner.

The apples are okay too.

The Monarda looking its best. It is an insect puller as well.

And my Gaura has suddenly exploded. I have exactly the same one on my balcony, where it is unhappy, so in Autumn it will move to Hunky Dory. No room for unhappy plants on my balcony!

The Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie' is giving my hot bed some sizzle. After a very slow start, three years ago, it has come into its stride now.

So my hot bed is looking marginally hotter this year, hurray! In here is another Gaura, the White Whirling Butterfly. And a bright orange Hemerocallis. 

Another plant which has decided to show me it was worth buying, at last, is this Digitalis ferruginea 'Gigantea'. It is a perennial, was next to nothing for three years and whoops! All of a sudden this year it is as tall as me. I think it is lovely, such an unusual colour.

I wouldn't mind some more to dot around, so I'll keep my eye open.

The bog standard Digitalis, the biannual ones, have bloomed and are already setting seed. I let them do their thing, and they walk all over the garden, although they do seem to have a preference for not-so-handy spots. Like in the doorway of my greenhouse.

The Digitalis being my height only shows what monsters the Cardoons have grown into this year! I mean...wow! No taking cosy photos of dozing Bumble bees in the flowers this time...they are impossible to reach.

One of my favourites: the drumstick Alliums. They are such fun!

I'll say goodnight, now.

There's a new blog on my website for your perusal (translator button provided);  it is a teaser for my 3rd part of the Brielle trilogy (called Moss).

You'll find it at Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Have a good week, wherever you are.

Renée Grashoff