2025/29 - Mrs McGregor's Garden

 When you are my age, you have probably grown up with Beatrix Potter's stories. Her little books were the first ones that did not only satisfy my need for cute naughty kittens and fluffy rabbits, but also woke me up to the concept of a kitchen garden. Alas, Mr McGregor scared the pants of me! But Beatrix's drawings of his garden were fascinating, and instilled a life-long love of kitchen gardens.

When maintained well, they are gorgeously poetic. The garden next to mine is such a garden. I will post a photo when you scroll down in this blog. But first I'll tell you about this veg garden.

My neighbour (mid-80's) has had this garden for over 60 years. He gardens the old- fashioned way: digging, rotating, milling, sowing seeds and planting out. His knees no longer allow him to kneel to thin out his beetroot, he says. I swear they thin out themselves, just to please him.

I would, too. His potatoes, in this terrible potato year, are a dream to behold. His strawberries were 4x the size of mine.  His cabbages produced fat healthy babies! He does everything just right.

For me, where the only carrots I grow are the wild variety (photo above) that seed themselves anywhere they please, his veg patch is a joy to look at. He, in turn, says he enjoys looking at my naturalistic chaos, which buzzes with insects. 

By the way, that bumblebee on the Hydrangea was still fast asleep when I took that photo at 07.30 a.m., while his mates were busily buzzing away.

Anyway: where my neighbour is Mr McGregor, I am Mrs McGregor. In true 20th century fashion, she hardly gets a mention in those books. I think she bakes a pie somewhere. But she certainly does not grow the veg! Well, neither do I. I love looking at them, but am pretty hopeless at growing them this year.

First my excuse was the drought. And still is. The hand full of yellow Raspberries that I managed and the one meal of Broad Beans are my successes. Along with the Romaine, Paksoi and Lettuce. But I am better at growing flowers. That is to say, flowers happily do their thing and I try to take care of them as best I can.

Despite heatwave nr 3, most flowers are uncomplainingly doing their thing. Some better than others, I must admit.

Right, time for that veg photo.

I took it this morning, from the corner of the almost emptied potato patch, looking towards my plot. To the right some succession potatoes (he's good at that), Romain, Cabbages, Beetroot. To the left Leeks, Lettuce, Onions. In the middle his amazing Strawberries (finished). Behind them more Onions. In his greenhouse Tomatoes, Cucumbers, String Beans, and Chinese Cabbage.

The monster Artichokes are mine. I had to tie them up to the obelisk after the storm we had exactly a week ago.

I braved the Ladybird larvae and dove in. They are over 2m tall by now, so unfortunately too tall for me to be able to watch the bumblebees using the flowers as hammocks in a week's time. I wrestled them to the obelisk, it was a bit like trying to get a cow to shift. Have you ever tried that? I have.

Right. I will leave you with a photo of the river near my house, the Brielse Maas (dammed off from the North Sea unfortunately, so the water turns green with algae in Summer). I will upload a new blog to my website today as well, so do take a look, why don't you? Renée Grashoff Schrijft

Brielse Meer/ Brielse Maas (same river, since dammed it is a 'meer' and no longer a river) at 06.15 this morning. My favourite walkies with Puck.

Have a good weekend, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

2025/28 - Promises, promises...this summer is bursting with them

 There were promises of rain. Except it was mizzle and did not make my garden ecstatic with joy. Then there were promises of fair weather; sunny with the gentle temperature of 23°. Except it was overcast with windforce 6 and 19°.

My conclusion is that our Met Office don't know what they are talking about. But I know that us being on an island facing the North Sea (sort of) makes the weather unpredictable. 

Anyway, my balcony has weathered the last storm, as my Clematis and Pandorea are proving. The white Pelargonium though I had to heavily deadhead. As I did the red ones. A single day of storm and wet make the heavy flowers turn brown.

When I enter Hunky Dory, I am first greeted by a lovely scent of the huge Fig next to the path (it is my never visiting neighbour's and has reverted back to Jungle) and then by that of my Fennel family. It is just about coming into flower. From one specimen it has produced ample offspring, which is now all over the place. I quite like it, so it can stay, for now. But this is the limit, if it colonises even more of my garden, I will start removing it.

 And here it is: the sun has come out as I write. I immediately lowered the sunscreen, as it will become unbearably hot in my flat otherwise.

As an aside: this was an outing to the beach Tuesday: you know, when it would be fair. Instead my three friends and I were sandblasted and soaked. That beach is in Ouddorp, the nearest thing we have to desert. It is huge. To reach the sea takes a 20 minute walk.

And back to the balcony. Sorry my friend, this is a back- and forth experience. 

The cherry Tomato is producing loads of tomatoes. So far three were ripe, and tasted...mwah. I have high hopes for my other one though, as it is a zebra Tomato I had two years ago, and it was lovely.

This is Victoria. And finally, after 4 years of sulking and not producing flowers, she is looking good! She was next to the obelisk, and apparently hated it. As soon as I took it away she started growing.

This is it. I cannot for the life of me begin to think WHY Victoria hates it. The perennial Lathyrus and white grape like it just fine and are having a race to the top.

Last week I promised I would move the Clivia to a shadier spot and I have. Hopefully this suits her better.

Small, unpretentious, but one of my favourite flowers: the Mexican Fleabane. Suddenly my country has also discovered it, and it is in the nurseries. I had to sow it myself before, and failed, but this one is doing great. I will carefully remove the seedheads and sprinkle them everywhere.

I'll leave you with a photo I took in Ouddorp. There is a milk goat farm there, De Mekkerstee. Hundreds of goats, the scent and sound of them was overwhelming, hahaha. But in the middle of goat chaos was this couple having a loving cuddle. It was so cute, and they kept it up for ages. I adore goats, so had a great time cuddling the ones that came up to the fence.

Okay, this is it. Have a great weekend wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

2025/27 - Heatwave! Yet again.

 When I was young, long, long ago, we occasionally had a heatwave. Not yearly, there used to be quite a few years in between. It was spoken of with awe, "do you remember, in 1976...". By now we shrug when the weather woman says the word. Yeah, right, another one, well, let's stock up on icecubes.

'Frog' and 'boiling water' spring to mind. Children of today think nothing of it that Brielle is as hot as the Spanish costa used to be thirty years ago. But I remember! Our summers were cool, and you were lucky if you were not washed out of your tent in August. My birthday is in August, and more often than not we had to sit indoors because it rained! Those rare dry sunny days were celebrated. When I huffed and puffed up a hill on my bicycle near Malmedy in 1976, I could not foresee that those temperatures would become our new normal in 2025.

Right. Back to Hunky Dory. I watered my Hydrangeas early this morning, because I know from experience they will suffer today. And just when they are so utterly gorgeous.

Look at that! They are so pretty when they are half in bloom.

My neighbour arrived after an hour, to water his veg. He is into veg. I am envious of his veg. My broad beans are a disappointment...the pods look great, but the beans are flawed.

So I console myself with my flowers. At least they compare well to his.

What's left of my Gaura is doing her best to defend her space against the monster Fennel.

The Hollyhock is towering over that Fennel though, it is huge. Just about as high as the apple tree behind it.

I think it is so pretty. Hollyhocks never grew for me in my previous garden, well, no worries here. They happily wonder through the garden, next to (and on) the paths.

Wherever possible I leave them be. You can see from the spilled pollen that they are constantly visited by the bumblebees and miner bees.

I cut back the mangled fronds of the Artichokes, as my neighbour had to do a sort of jungle wade through to reach his potatoes. They tower over the Lathyrus Latifolius. Which, I am very happy to say, is starting to flower. Yay! Result! Mind you, I watered it religiously, otherwise I would have lost it.

It will be blush pink. It is a perennial.

The Crocosmia underneath is also looking good.

There is something wrong with all my Buddleia though!! Every March I cut them back hard, and they are in full flower by June. This year all have stunted growth and are frankly looking terrible.

The Clivia is flowering in the hot border. Mind you, her leaves suffer from the sun, I should find her a better (shadier) spot.

My English Lavender is doing well though. This does not mind that heat one bit.

The Trachelospermum is in flower as well. It grows up a wild plum, which is not happy with the fact I topped it. But that plum is in the wrong place and I don't have the strength to dig it out! Where is Lee Burkhill when I need him, eh?

Ah... Yes. Eventhough I try to keep water in the frog pond, is is like carrying water to the sea. Topping it up is impossible, my waterbutt is empty. And I need the other butts to keep my plants alive. So, after long unhappy thinking I have decided to fill it in with soil. I'll leave a depression, so hopefully I can keep bogplants alive. I have a Stipia that does not like my balcony planter. The Waterlily I will take home, and try to keep it alive in my pond there.

Some you win, some you lose...

It it disappointing though, I so enjoyed my old (large) pond, with goldfish and dragonflies and many frogs.

It just would not happen in this garden.

So. Go with the flow, Renée!

I will leave you with some photos of my balcony garden, which is doing very well.

Have a good weekend, wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff 

2025/26 - Extremes all over the place

 After a week of rain and low temperatures, Wednesday was an in-between day. It started rainy, chilly and extremely windy, and ended sunny, and then suddenly a massive rainshower and sunny again. Our weather is all over the place...Because today, Friday, it was 20°C at 05.33 (I know, 'cause Puck told me she needed walkies NOW), and it is expected to reach 32° by the afternoon. Followed by a massive thunderstorm, so I need to get my planters down from the railings of the balcony.

My neighbour took precautions and cut off all his Peonies, but had overlooked this one. It was hiding itself on my side of the plot.

Meanwhile that wind was strafing my plants. Okay, everything is now green instead of parched, but wind dries out plants too, so I still have to water the pots! I took Puck, never a good idea, she is not a natural gardener.

The dominant colour is green at the moment, as most plants are not at the flowering stage, and the spring blooms have finished. But my fern has survived, which is great.

The Cosmea is growing, almost hiding the Geranium from sight.

This Lily is still going strong.

And so is Schneewitchen. The other three roses have finished, but I know they will get a second blooming.

And suddenly the perennial Lathyrus has taken off. It is Lathyrus Latifolius 'Pink Pearl', and did nothing since I planted it two months ago. But now it is growing, yay! It has competition from the grape next to it. Not ideal, but I thought that grape had vanished.

 I think this photo illustrates the prairy feeling of the back of my garden, next to the compost heaps. There Salvias and Phlomis compete with tall grasses that have blown in from the verge on the other side of the ditch. I see the majority of insects in this part of the garden, so I leave the grasses and only weed if absolutely necessary.

Another plant I thought had perished: my yellow Digitalis grandiflora. It is there, hurray!

It is hard to believe that Pinus on the left was only 15cm high 4 years ago. It is taller than me now, more than 1.70cm. In a year or so it will have outgrown the Artichokes. They took a real battering this week, lots of their fronds have wind damage. 

Talking about that...half of my apples have blown down.

One of the many Ladybirds on the Artichokes. This is an exotic, and not many of our native ones are around I'm sad to say.

This morning I felt a burning pain in the cuticle of my ringfinger, so I thought 'thorn?'. But it turned out to be a Ladybird larvae. Man, they have jaws! It hung from my cuticle so I had to pull it off, and then the cuticle stung and bled as if a beastie much larger had bit me!

This is it. The Fourteen-spot Ladybird. In future I'll look differently on my Artichoke guests, I can tell you!

A sweet little Campanula.

Since not only thunder but also hail is predicted for tonight, I took a photo of my balcony garden for you, before it will be ruined.

Puck is pretending she hasn't spotted the three ripe Strawberries, but as soon as my back is turned, she will steal them.

Have a good weekend wherever you are!

Renée Grashoff