Timber!

We had our own version of a 'superstorm' today - the winds were gusting up to 56mph at one point, and unfortunately some of our garden flora couldn't take it.

The ornamental pear tree is probably the major casualty - we now have a stump, and a lump on the other side of the garden:

 

Ah well, it'll all be fodder for the wood burner in due course, and luckily the 'big' trees made it through in more or less one piece.

Cucumber Soup

Having finally cleared the greenhouse of cucumbers had to decide what to do with them - distributed some to colleagues - but were still left with a fair number, and it isn't exactly salad weather.







In the end settled on cucumber and potato soup - which actually turned out really well.


Had pretty much decided to give up on growing cucumbers (we just weren't using them), but on the back of this, we may finally have found a tasty solution to the annual cucumber glut!

Has it Stopped Raining Yet?

Well September and October had their bright spots, but again the weather was generally unsettled, and continued wetter than we would have liked.  Indeed, it was sufficiently wet to flood the bottom of the garden again in October:

So we didn't get our Indian Summer - luckily the weather dried up for a few days to get some gardening done later in October - but otherwise we'll just have to hope for a better Summer in 2013!

Fairy Cam?

Have a Magical HALLOWEEN!

Sleeping on the Job . . .

After two weekends of cutting and clipping, and raking and digging, the garden may be ready for winter - but someone else is ready for bed . . .

A Pond Too Far . . .

After a mix of damp days and heavy downpours, got up on Saturday to find we'd got another pond at the bottom of the garden - and by dinnertime (after more rain) it was a positive lake, which had flooded back into the fruit cage.





Fortunately the rain stopped in the afternoon, and we were able to get the drain rods out in (what turned out to be) a vain attempt to clear the drainage pipe into the field next door.


In the end we had to resort to running hose pipes from the 'lake' down to the bottom of the drive, to siphon the water off into the roadside drains, and to clear enough water to hopefully find the drainage pipe.

The hosepipes did sterling work and by Sunday morning, the lake was back to pond, and the fruit cage was clear of water.

We even got a small pipe draining through the hedge into the field, but weren't able to clear the main drainage pipe, which we thought had probably collapsed.


Overnight it rained heavily again, but the hosepipes etc. kept draining and at least  on Monday morning the pond if it wasn't any smaller, wasn't at least that much bigger.

Finally, today, it stopped raining - the 'pond', now little more than a muddy puddle, finally allowed access to the old drainage pipe, which had indeed collapsed.  Luckily we had an old scaffolding pipe lying around the place, and Martin was able (with some brute force, and getting rather muddy in the process) to hammer through a new drainage channel.

We'll have to do some more work at some point to establish a clear path through to the pipe - but that can wait for another day, and some better weather!

Watch the Birdy!

The birds have been posing for the camera again: