Gardens matter

This week: Birthday treat!; Garden matters;

At last it happened! We actually received some rain on Saturday morning.

Not much, just 4 mm, but better than nothing. 40 mm would have been more useful, because everything is baked dry, but there we are!

It was the very edge of a storm, the majority of which passed to the south of the island. I had been watching its progress on Blitzortung, where the initial track suggested the storm would pass over the island.

However the long, thin and high limestone backbone of the island deflects weather away and this storm moved parallel to Otok Hvar, to the east.

We have had thunderstorms all round us, on several days this week, but they have all sailed past without leaving so much as a drop of rain on Dol.

What has changed this week is the temperatures.

Gone are the 35°C or 37°C of just a week ago, replaced by more normal and pleasant 28°C and with cooler days, much cooler nights as well.

Next Wednesday is the northern Autumnal Equinox, when both day and night are exactly 12 hours and from then it is all downhill to mid-winter.

I cut two more loads of wood for the central heating stove, this time extremely dry kindling timber, so I now have a good supply of everything I need for November.

The lack of rainfall has meant that I have continued to irrigate, although I have reduced the frequency to alternate days, as the temperature and light levels drop. Plants don’t need as much water as they prepare for winter.

A job I have started is to dismantle some old window frames. I removed these when I had double glazing installed, with the intention of using them to make a cold frame.

The reality is that I have nowhere which gets enough mid-winter sunshine to make a cold frame a useful asset and there is nothing else I really want them for.

However, I cannot see the point in just smashing the glass to remove it from the wood. So I have started to remove the putty from the frames to recycle everything.

Despite their age, the putty is still hard, so I have been using my oscillating cutter to help remove it.

Even with a power tool, it is still a long job and I am only on my second so far. This is a “work in progress” which I will continue with next week.

Anticipating some rain, I moved all the large logs which need a hydraulic splitter to reduce to size, into a single pile and then covered them with plastic to keep them dry.

They have all split as they have dried out this summer, which should make them easy to split with a machine later in the year.

Birthday treat!

It’s our birthday at the end of the month, that is Ujko Gizmo and the car. I have had them both for seven years and they both look good…

It also means that it is time to take the car for its annual Government inspection, so this week I have been getting ready. There was the trip to the Adriatic osiguranje insurance office to pay for the next year. Fully comprehensive cover and recovery for €280, the same as last year.

Then there was a morning of washing, leathering and polishing said car, ready for the test. Given that I bought it second hand from someone in Belgium, when it was four years old, it is aging well.

But then, I only travel around 1,200 km a year, so it does not cover a great deal of ground.

With the car washed and dried, I made a start on the polishing. I usually polish the car before the start of the winter rains, so it has a nice surface on the paint to shed the water. I should add that it doesn’t go out when it is wet, but not having a garage, rain does sometimes drive under the carport.

There is a similarity here! Gizmo doesn’t go out in the rain either…

The morning was sunny and I realised very quickly that trying to apply Turtlewax polish in sunshine was a bad idea. The polish was drying immediately I put it on the paintwork. So I gave up on that idea.

There were still jobs to do, for example hoovering out the car mats and emptying the rubbish bag.

It did take me back some decades to my Advanced Driving Course, that four weeks of tearing around the north west, in various vehicles, with an instructor encouraging you to go ever faster, safely.

The cars got washed every day and were inspected, then at the end of the course they were polished. I have to admit that I only polish my car three or four times a year.

I was out early on Thursday and at the local island test centre before 7am, when they open. I was third in line for the test.

Everything was OK, the car passed and I paid my €159 for the window sticker. So the car is fully legal for another year.

Gizmo is still deciding what he wants for his birthday treat…

Garden matters

I remain very pessimistic about what trees will survive this year’s drought and heat waves. In the East Orchard, an old Almond tree looks as though it has died.

There are few leaves left, and just bare twigs.

In the same area where twelve months ago I planted winter vegetables, this year I have done nothing at all.

The soil is baked hard and completely devoid of any moisture. I decided that there was no point in planting anything, knowing I would have to irrigate it all by hand, night and morning, until we get some serious rain. That might not happen for another two months.

And based on last year’s experience, what I did plant and irrigate, really did not do very well. I have some broad bean seeds ready to plant, but I will wait until I know there is rain on the way.

In one corner of this orchard I planted a Christmas Bush, Senna bicapsularis, in a sheltered corner. I have kept this nice plant moist and this week I have been rewarded with a lot of “sunshine yellow” flowers. There are still more buds to burst.

My Lantana plants are still flowering. Their flowers attract butterflies and moths, throughout the year. At the moment there are High Brown Fritillaries, Fabriciana adippe, on every plant.

The males have the distinctive orange front underwing.

Insects actually abound in Dol in the Autumn, you just have to look closely. This is one of the many different kinds of colourful Weevil that I have around my home.

As it is climbing vine stem, I am guessing that it is one of the Vine Weevil family.

Walking down into the top orchard this week, I was struck with how many leaves are starting to come of my Myrobalan Plum.

Looking up I can see there are a number of dead branches which I need to remove. Cutting them while there are still some leaves, means I can see what is dead and what is not. So it is another job for next week.

I also saw that a couple of plums had fallen from my Shropshire Damson Prune. That was the signal to pick all the fruit, before any more fell.

Currently they are in the fridge for a few days, until I am ready to preserve the plums for the winter.

The last of this year’s grapes are ripe.

These are dessert variety. I have left them on the vine and pick a few each time I walk past. A larder on the vine, so to speak… NCG