2026/39 - Allotment Maintenance - necessary work

 After months of schlepping water, water and more water, it is finally cool enough to trust the occasional rainshower to provide water for my allotment. I still water the plants in the greenhouse, obviously.

Kruisspin/ Cross spider

   And yes, it is Autumn. This   morning, whilst planning to   mow my grass, I almost   walked straight into this   cobweb. The spider was busy   repairing it, but fled to the   safety of the Buddleia it had   attached its web to.

   

   As long as spiders sit still, I   admire their beauty. As soon   as they start moving, it is   another story entirely... I was   once bitten by a big one and it really hurt, but only for a moment.

   But this one was well behaved.

In between the showers, I did some maintenance. High time too, the grass on my paths was so high that I was afraid my old fashioned hand mower would not be able to get through. But it did, just...

Here you are; it looks much better! That pink Gaura is still doing her best, very sweet. The Hedera on the right is full of flowers too, a real bee magnet.

My tiny orchard is to the right, and most of the apples are on the ground now...I noticed there were no wasps there...quite surprising, as last year there were plenty.

Koolwitje / Cabbage Butterfly Caterpillars

Plenty of these, though! Here they are on the leaves of my summer bulbs (duds! Only leaves and no flowers!). I don't mind them munching my leaves; it is better that they eat my duds, than that they devastate the cabbages of my neighbour.

My garden is filled with Asters/Michealmas Daisies, so cheerful. There are white ones as well, but they are still in bud.

And my Cotoneaster pyramid is suddenly orange. It usually stays that way until the birds get really hungry, and then they pick it clean. It used to be up against an old broad bean fence, which blew over in a gale. So now I have given it a pyramid of three apple branches, which it seems to like.

I cut off the lower branches of my silver Pine a few weeks ago, and it looks much better now that I was able to mow around my tiny Lavender and Erigeron island. I have not finished mowing though...the area next to the fence still has to be done. 

And then the next project is to prune the Elaeagnus again. I do this in Autumn, to keep up the raised canopy. The endeavour is to cloudprune it...so far the bare trunks are nice, but the cloudpruning still looks very amateur. Especially now the branches have grown out so much. Never mind, I'll keep at it.

Those daily rainshowers have had another effect: my plants in the trellis planter on the balcony have suddenly decided to give it one last effort! I have watered them daily during those five (5!!!) heatwaves, and thus kept them alive, but flower? They stopped completely. Just look at them now though.

It reminds me of how nature is very resilient. And that is hopeful. We people make such a mess of things! At least the earth will survive us, I think.

Beneath the Oaks in my street, there is an abundance of toadstools, huge ones, I have never seen them get this large. My son says they are edible, but due to the also huge number of dogs in my neighbourhood, I will not try.

Right. From Puck and me both, I wish you a great week, wherever you are!

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2025/45 - Autumn leaves - pest or perfect?

 This morning I drove home from Hunky Dory, and spotted one of the men in my street trying to use a leafblower on his bit of pavement. This definitely was a case of 'keeping him entertained', as the leaves blew back as soon as he had removed them to the grass verge. In my mind's eye I see a son, thinking "oh hey, let's give the old man a leafblower for his 80th".

There are many very handy garden tools to gift your dad, but a leafblower is totally useless in my country, as it is always windy. Just saying. If you love yours, do so by all means!

Anyway, I happened to be 'busy with leaves' as well this morning. I coppice an apple tree, as it is much too close to my greenhouse, but I don't possess the strength to dig it up. The branches grow nice and sort of straight though, so every October I cut them and put them aside to use as poles for anything and everything.

This is my haul for this year. Whilst I was ripping the leaves off, I thought what a waste, really. Why not build a leaf container? I am always being told how wonderful composted leaf mold is to spread on your borders! 

It is very important that the air can circulate, so I used leftover netting (had no chicken wire). And you should keep the leaves moist, well, ha! It has finally turned sort of normal delta weather, so that means no shortage of moisture.

The lengths of branch I could not use, I put on my woodpile. I know for a fact there is a hedgehog patrolling my garden, and I fantasize that it lives underneath this pile. So every year I top it up. The toads appreciate it too.

My soil is still too rock hard to dig holes for the balcony plants that I have delegated to my garden. But it is slowly getting there! Perhaps in a few days time. On my balcony all planters are on the ground: storm Amy attacked my balcony with gusts up to 100km. Not funny!

They will remain floorbound until April at least! The advantage is twofold: I don't have to worry about storms and they quite like being so close to eachother.

There are more flowers now than at the height of summer! And oh golly, some of my summer bulbs are finally showing blooms! It must be because I moaned about them (not really, it is the fact they have had a week of rain).

Look! At last! The Ixia are all over the garden now, hurray.

And the white Asters are gorgeous.

So are these. It is Aster lateriflorus 'Horizontalis'; the name baffles me, as they are growing vertically. But they are very pretty. Tiny, but pretty.

See those tiny beetles? My one Artichoke which is already sending up fresh shoots, is infested by them.  And they are a mystery to me...Could they be young Aphidecta obliterata? Or young Coccinellidae?

If you know, do tell me.

Now this is an insect that I meet very regularly and know the name of: it is a Pentatomidae, what we call a pyjamaschildwants, or striped shield bug in English. I think the Dutch name much funnier. I have green, brown, red stripey and yellow stripey ones, and they all love my Fennel.

Better late than never...The Cosmos is blooming. The ones on the balcony are spent, but the ones in the garden have finally decided to give it one last go.

Okay, I'll leave you with a glut of Figs.

This drought of a summer has made the Fig Jungle next to my plot explode. Since they are left to rot and fall off, I have taken to picking the ones I can reach. And they taste absolutely lovely. Who would have thought? Ripe figs, in the delta!

If you enjoyed the blog about the Groei & Bloei gardens, you can rest assured: I will be visiting other gardens.

Look me up at Renée Grashoff Schrijft for my other blogs and books, and have a lovely weekend, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff