‘Why are your peas looking
sick?’ asks Robin whilst he watches me water the plot. He sits there perched on
top of the brassica netted frame as if he is directing all operations whilst
secretly watching and listening for grubs.
‘I don’t know.
It must be the hot weather, but I haven’t planted them down there before and
Freddie Fox used that area as his private toilet last year.
‘But what
has grown is a funny colour’ Robin says eyeing up the odd purple pod.
‘They are mangetout,
not peas, and supposed to be purple. They are called Shiraz’ I reply.
“Trust you
to pick an alcoholic veg’ Robin says as he pops down to wrestle with a small
worm. The tug of war is short, and Robin soon flies off with his wriggling
prize.
I look at
the miserable plants clinging on for their last rights against the twigs they
were supposed cover. I give them some water but there is no reaction.
Everything
else is blooming and although some vegetables have come early, others are quickly
catching up and if the slugs and snails can keep themselves to themselves
everything should be ok.
I turn my
attention to the two grape vines on the top section. There were a gift along
with two others from Caroline, a good friend of Annie’s who live in deepest
Kent. She still has six vines and I wondered if she had a drinking problem or secretly
ran a pub.
The vines
on the top took straight away, were cut back and everything looked well. They
flowered and have little bunches of grapes but are still subdued and probably wondering
where their mates are and what the are doing in London. Their mates I planted
in my reclaimed bank and they didn’t take kindly to the move but now are in
their element with shoots all over and big developing bunches of grapes.
Perhaps the others need to live on the bank too?
The
challenge is that until the grapes develop, I don’t know which is white, which
is red, and that will teach me for losing the labels on transfer. I wonder if
the mangetout Shiraz up top is jealous and it is a Shiraz below on the bank
that is stealing the show?
The
sunflowers turn their heads, watching and waiting to be given a drink. Now they
don’t need any help and pop up in spring, get moved into position and only
require a tall cane to stand proud and shine all summer. Mind you Sidney and
his gang of squirrels fight the bees and birds for the seed heads as soon as
they start to turn. It’s amusing to watch them scurrying up the stork and
biting off the heads of the flowers, watching them drop to the ground. They start
back down, pick up the flower head, and then they are off the hide it somewhere
they will probably soon forget. They sow seeds on their journey and it’s rather
funny to see them running away down the path with a flower head bigger than
them and often still with a bee after the last drink.
Lottie
hates squirrels so she is very annoyed I haven’t put trip wires around the sunflowers
and mined the area under them. She just barks at them which probably encourages
them to come back, knowing she is tied up and can’t chase them.
Back to
today’s watering.
The other new
plant this year is the kiwi vine. It’s not mine but my neighbour’s whose plot I
am looking after whilst she is self-isolating with her shielded husband. The
vine looks great as it straggles the arbor but has done little until this year.
Happily, it’s it had masses of little
delicate buttercup style flowers all over. Apparently it has never flowered
before and maybe it is going to give me a special reward of fruit this year.
Alas there
doesn’t appear to be any fruit setting and not being a kiwi expert or having grown
it before, I don’t know what the baby fruit should look like at this stage. I’ve
searched the internet and got lots of advice on everything except what I should
be looking for. Robin even told me off, thinking I was looking at a bird’s
nest. I bet birds around here have never seen a kiwi fruit, let alone flower.
Back to the
more traditional watering, the Patti pans and courgettes. Now if this was wine
not water, they would be permanently drunk with the amount they consume. I wonder
if they’d like some Shiraz?
