Life in a Brittany Garden

I had to take a close up of the original group of mushrooms just to emphasise the size of some of the chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius.) Some of the largest I’ve found. I’d decided to walk to boules in the hope of finding a few more mushrooms to add to those I’d collected earlier. I’d been on…

After weeks of dry weather it’s flipped over into the kind of drizzly, grey, dampness that Brittany can specialise in which flattens your spirits and grinds you down if it lasts any length of time. Happily it is not forecast to last. A positively silver lining to the clouds and damp has been the sudden…

I’ve made Gooseberry jam. I’ve made a couple of jars of sweet gooseberry pickle. I’ve made a few jars of  a South Indian spiced gooseberry pickle. I’ve given gooseberries away. I’ve allowed the blackbirds to help themselves to gooseberries and I’ve not said a word against them…. There have been a lot of gooseberries. They’ve almost…

It’s getting crowded in there…. Crocosmia ‘lucifer’ with both wild and golden marjoram in front.Lychnis chalcedonica with white Verbascum chaixii and the first Dahlia.So far no Blight despite many, many warnings. There was an adequate amount of rain last week just when it was getting properly worryingly dry, which has replenished my stocks a little.…

….. and I mean for me as much as for the flowers – which are probably more resilient. And since I looked the forecasts for the next few days’ temperatures have increased. Now I know that, compared to loads of areas these are ‘normal’ summer highs – and for other places – even rather on…

It’s still very windy, but somehow the polytunnel is managing to stay put. It’s got rips where most of its ties are and it makes a disconcerting ‘I’m trying to fly away’ noise whenever there is another gust. Hopefully the weather will calm down soon – leaving me with just the never ending Blightwatch warnings…

Polytunnel skeleton. Polytunnel covered and planted. It can be a lot worse than this in the winter, but 80kmph gusts in June are bad. And even worse when coupled with rain… There’s just so much more that can get damaged. I’m sitting watching the plastic cover on the polytunnel billow and flap and am wondering…

This slightly damaged, but still impressive beauty was enjoying the warmth in the new polytunnel. This Spring has been the best ever for Swallowtail sightings in the garden. The increase in the numbers of egg laying females and the significant amount of new fennel planting may be coincidental but I don’t think so. There are…

All enthusiasm for this blog evaporated under the weight of the onslaught from various natural phenomena. What started as a near perfect season faltered as, despite my best efforts; the endless checking of the weather forecast and the nightly round of pulling plastic, netting, fleece or straw over the growing list of susceptible plants and…

This is a hyacinth that’s had its bulb eaten by a vole. You only notice when it’s too late. This is the hole left after the vole ate the roots of the chard plant and it collapsed and wilted. These are Dutch Iris bulbs which had been getting ready to flower until the vole ate…