These brown and white false turkey tail fungi are presently growing on the cut off but very much alive trunk of our chestnut tree. They surprised me this Sunday morning while taking a stroll around the garden, and I thought they looked beautiful. The garden at present is very wet, but to my delight tender new growth is appearing everywhere.
So right, we live in S.W. Ireland, and that means that we experience a micro climate due to the gulfstream passing by these shores, and normally we do have a mild winter, it seldom snows or freezes here, though we do get some light frost during or after January.
Even though it is quite cold just now, and the mountains in the distance have their tops covered in snow, in the garden the plant growth reminds me more of early spring. The temperature of the soil seems normal enough, it was 6 degrees Celsius the other day, and at night the outside temperature is between 6 and 8 degrees Celsius. And even today the cold wind made it feel very chilly. But yet something seems out of kilter, and I cannot actually put my finger on it clearly. Questions like; Is the planet really warming up? Is the climate changing? beg for answers everyday and all around us now. Here are some of my own observations.
And taking stock of the garden the other day here is what I found.
PS actually Oca is only harvested after the first night frost, they are a reddish sweetish little potato-like vegetable. I have found them relatively easy to grow but hard to peel or clean before eating. They are a nice plant though. Check this website if you are interested in them. https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/how-do-you-grow-oca-3113951-Dec2016/
Today the temperature went up to 28C which is very warm for West Cork. Beautiful sunshine and blue sky added to our pleasures, and a little breeze made it so that I could work in the garden. Our very overgrown and wild garden, our Ark, has attracted an enormous number of insects and butterflies during the summer months, and still there is a great number of hoverflies, a fair number of bumblebees, and many smaller flies, as well as butterflies visiting and making life very pleasant especially knowing that we are helping with the upkeep of biodiversity in Ireland. Very necessary.
The photo to the right above are the seeds of the Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus), a medicinal plant that I grow in the garden, it is not for use as it is a highly toxic plant and not suitable for self-medication. The flower is pretty though and I get satisfaction from growing any herbal plant. The photo on the left are the seeds of the broad-leaved plantain (plantago major) I have one large one growing in the garden and it is beautiful. I use it mainly for treating insect bites, as a compress.
While looking over the garden for seed-heads I found this green shield-bug nymph, and not only one of them, the garden is full of these beautiful little creatures, and that is no wonder either as earlier this summer there was a multitude of the adult type mating all over the garden. This common shield bug is native to Ireland and feeds on tree and plant juices. They are harmless.
The nettles grew very tall this summer, they are now in seed. I used quite a few in cooking, but mainly I grew them for the caterpillars of Red Admiral butterflies.
I already notice quite some difference even though the plants have barely been able to establish themselves and have been fighting lots of slugs despite my efforts at keeping them checked. Plot one (compost from organic waste) is way ahead of plot two (leaf mould & organic seaweed fertilizer). The young plants in plot one already look much healthier than those in plot two, but of course there are variables, like plot two is getting the evening sun while plot one is getting sun most of the day. Both are overshadowed by now with tree canopy’s. Weather has been very warm with no rain in the last fortnight. Terrible trouble with slugs despite going out every night and picking them off, even now resorted to using organic slug pellets. Cats have also done damage by uprooting young plants and messing soil, hence the covering of my two control plots. I’ve lost some bean plants but have sowed more of them.
Top left is a bean plant of plot two, underneath a bean plant of plot one – big difference so far. On right are the spinach seedlings and beneath on left the radish seedlings all of which are part of the experiment and are ready to plant out.
And besides the ongoing experiment I have quite a few other young plants ready to be planted out, such as leaf beet, kale, marrow, marigolds, borage to name but a few.
The broad beans which I planted out a month ago are now in flower, I did have trouble with some black mould or fly on them, someone called it Chocolate Spot. I sprayed it with a combination of tea tree oil and a natural soap, I also nipped out the affected parts and it seems to have solved the problem. Today I can see young beans appearing on the plants already.
Some of my variety of herbs growing good, two different types of thyme, two different types of oregano, lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, and more to be added.
Garden is absolutely full of insects especially bumblebees and bees. The cat is the culprit that does damage, but she is rather beautiful! The two comfrey plants are flowering and have grown enormously, the variety of bumblebees visiting these plants is fantastic!
And finally some good reading. I started ‘The Butterfly Isles’ a while ago, it is a slow read but delightful and so informative – learning such a lot about butterflies habitats in Britain. The other one I’m reading is great too, ‘Earth Matters’ is all about the soil and the importance of it and how soil underlies civilization, it contains so much good information and is told in an interesting way – enjoying this, it’s written by Richard Bardgett and published by Oxford University Press.
Some weeks ago after I finished my course about the soil (with FutureLearn). Then just recently I started another online course this time with Coursera. Its run by the University of Tel Aviv and it is all about plant physiology, quite deep and intense but also very interesting. I’m sure happy to be able to avail of these on-line courses, they are a great discipline and education. I am extremely busy and hardly find the time to write a blog post, but I hope all my friends and followers have enjoyed my update.
An interesting facebook site of GROWOBSERVATORY
Yesterday I took a look at some of the spiders which were hanging around the garden, seeing that the turn of the season is almost upon us and with the morning mists and the evening becoming cooler, the spiders seem to become much more noticeable. They immediately reminded me of ballerinas, especially the three first ones that I came across, they are garden spiders, Araneus diadematus, also called the Crowned Orb Weaver. You see those a lot around here, they are quite beautiful and have sometimes huge webs. They rarely enter the house. In autumn the gardens are full of them. I took the first three photos, of two different spiders just outside along the wall beside the rainwater barrel.
Here in between two leaves (the leaves looked as if they had been pulled together into some sort of hammock), there are two garden spiders, sleeping perhaps, not sure but they looked quite cosy in there. I’ll be keeping an eye out for other species with the autumn starting. We are still getting nice weather, perhaps we might even get an Indian summer. Schools have started and everyone is getting back into routine, we saw a great number of swallows gathering on a neighbour’s roof, another sign of the season’s changing and their farewell to our shores, and we ourselves are preparing for our journey to warmer climate too.
A happy Monday morning wishes to all, hope that your week has started well. My week could not have started any better when early on I woke up to glorious sunshine. I happen to glance out of the window to the front garden and the buddleia bush and there I saw the most beautiful butterflies, five different species. They were fluttering among the honeybees of which there were over half a dozen. I stood watching them for a long time and only then thought about taking some photos and I’m glad that I did because in a way I feel that I have captured their beauty to share with so many others, and that makes me happy!
What a beautiful time of the year it is!
This is a peacock butterfly, it is found all over Ireland. It hibernates during the winter. It’s got to be the most beautiful of the butterflies in Ireland.
This was amazing, so many species on the one flower spike, there is the red admiral, these feed on over-ripe fruit and also in particular you see them on the buddleia bush. There is also a painted lady and a small tortoise butterfly. Not to forget the lovely honeybee, it’s so nice to see many of these around isn’t it, knowing that they are on the decline.
After I had stood there for a long time watching them, there came a neighbour’s cat and she could think of nothing better to do but to try and catch the butterflies, she managed to get hold of one branch of flowers and destroyed that, but the butterflies were able to escape and of course, much as I love cats, she got chased away very quickly by me.
