Garden trimmed and graphics tablet

[bunn]

I am hand-writing this post via a graphics tablet. The idea is to improve my coordination writing with the pen so that I can then use the tablet for more exact things such as drawing.

It is rather slow though as I write slower than I type at the best of times. And it's definitely struggling to recognise my handwriting, which isn't fabulous when writing on paper. writing + having the text appear somewhere quite different is hard!

Anyway: the garden. It's at that August stage where everything is growing far too fast and looking unkempt, not to say wild. So we have just seized a relatively dryish day to mow lawns and hunt and destroy brambles. This are still rather wild and woolly, but improved. Philmephlegm and I are now rather tined. P. fell asleep in front of the football afterwards which is most unlike him.

Lots of butterflies and honey bees about despite the weeks of rain we have had. I suppose that is the upside of our rampant vegetation. There is lots in flower, even if some of it is cowparsley and ragwort.

Drat this tablet, I'm using the keyboard now. I have had a few figs - still not that many, there are lots on the tree, but it's just too wet for them to ripen quickly I think.

The eating apple tree does not seem to have done well this year. It only has a few apples on it, I wonder if some have fallen early - I note that last year on 2nd Aug they were just ripe though, so that would be considerably earlier if they are already at the end of their season, so perhaps it's just the wet weather. However, the two cooking apple trees are laden down. I must prune the cooking apple in the top garden back, it's leaning on top of the eating apple up there, which can't help.

The grapes, which were 'tiny and green' on second Aug last year, are looking good at the moment and swelling nicely. Last year they were shrivelled by 24th, so fingers crossed that doesn't happen again this year!

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

I really need to do some gardening, but I just haven't had the time recently. The grass really needs cutting and the bits I didn't manage to get mulched have all greened up again :-(

Our eating apples haven't done well this year either, but the raspberries have been doing very well for only being in just over a year. At the moment we're getting about a bowlful that are ripe at the same time, every few days, so I have high hopes of getting enough next year to actually do something like make jam with them :-)