Rain = Slob

Dear units, I have become a slob. A slob in so many ways! I wholeheartedly blame the rain which has seemed endless, crushing the dreams of a superabundant garden under its sodden heel. The wind too. Ghastly gale force winds, having snapped off more than one of my sunflowers. Bastard! Mind you it could've been one of the many foxes that frequent the area, screaming their lungs off always as I'm just getting my head down for well deserved shut eye.

So yes, I'm sure everyone's been feeling the gloom in June. Yet there have been small pockets of activity and a lorra lorra laughs. A good instance was shifting a load of paving slabs in Parsley & Cakeatonne's driveway with a crowbar. My pythons have not a had a real chance to hiss in quite some time so this was WELCOME. The driveway's similar to my garden at rue Albert, nice and long with various flowers lining both sides.

The main job was to plant a tree which was being battered by the BULLY WIND. Conversation was great. I was telling Parsley about how I'd found an ants nest in the compost. I'd been reading troubleshooting articles on various blogs and online forums.

Oregano: 'Apparently if you lay down semolina, the ants will take it and feed it to the queen. When she eats in it expands inside her and she blows up. Then they all run off.'

Parsley: 'Haaaaaa! They run off? Is that the scientific term?'

Ridiculous as ever. You can keep your fancy bacterial solutions, stick to home made. Speaking of which, my stinking garlic juice has worked to some degree. A hosta I bought from the Kings Heath flower and veg show a few years back has grown phenomenally. Sure, there's been nibbles here and there but I think it's worked.   

 

An extra special mention has to go to my wicked t-shirt which Parsley and Cakeatonne picked up from Gardeners world at the NEC (when Cakeatonne wasn't yawning his jaw off whilst Carol Klein was doing her hard gardeners walk towards the camera). The slogan: WEED EM AND REAP is a masterstroke. You can expect to see me wearing this (replete with 100s of photos, naturally) a lot more from now on. A huge thank you to thelandtrust.org.uk  for this!

Oh look, the sun's come out!