Where is the sun and the warmth?

Hello Everyone,

Bob and I hope you are all very well and enjoying the Summer Season…with the Euros and Football and 2020 Cricket in Antigua. Both venues have had torrential rain at times…bit like being here in the Shire. We do enjoy talking about the weather and lots of chat has been had, about the months of wet weather and not a week seems to have gone by without rain falling since the end of last Summer! There are areas on the farm which are still boggy. 

The amount of water landing in some areas of the farm has resulted in some crop damage. The main concern has been in the Orchard Field. On looking at the trees, particularly the pear and some apple trees, we can see that the leaves are not completely true. They are looking a little curly and stunted. Shock and stress, due to the water table being quite high, resulting in tree roots saturated for a number of weeks, has reduced the number of fruits we can see on some trees. We had high expectations of a good crop from all the trees as the blossom bloomed considerably a few weeks ago as you can see from this weeks picture…the trees were overflowing with blossom. It would appear that some of our trees will not be producing much fruit this year. They will re balance next Spring Season.

It is good news that the trees will be fine next year, but this is frustrating as it shows how gardening is a ‘long game’. When we suffer with an issue with a crop, the opportunity has gone for a harvest and we have to wait a whole year with fingers crossed. The planning and tending goes out of the window. We will be back to the drawing board.

The impact of the weather has had a huge impact on our goodies this year. Thankfully we have Instagram to use as a reference and last year we began harvesting our strawberries on June the 4th. We are nowhere near harvesting yet! We do have thousands of pale green strawberries, we look at them everyday, just waiting to see that deep red treasure. As they say ‘a watched kettle never boils’, but come on Mother Nature, please can we have some sun and heat, consistent sun and heat.

The polytunnels are all looking smart, (as we are having a ‘Shire Garden Trail’ today), but the doors on the tunnels are sometimes being closed due to chilly winds. Some sides of the tunnels are still being kept down to increase the temperature. We are having to create this extra heat inside the tunnel due to single figure temperatures. We do not want to have issues with all the Fresh Local Organic Summer Fruiting Produce. 

Oooooo! I feel as if I am grumbling, sorry. I do realise that I need to just go with what  Mother Nature throws at us. I know I should be patient. I do just want to be offering to you, our lovely customers, our goodies which just seem to be biding their time…slowly. 

Well I am now going to greet our visitors on the Garden Trail with a smile on my face (probably wearing waterproofs) and come to terms with this slower growing pace. 

All enjoy your day, whatever you are doing,

Take care,

 Ann👩🏻‍🌾