Mid August 2022

Uh oh!  Aug 2022

It's been an unusually hot, dry summer again, though not as bad as 2018 where it didn't rain for more than 50 days straight.  There has been rain this summer, and I even have some saved up in my water butts still, for hand watering my patio containers.  I have two 200 L butts collecting rain from the house roof, and one 200 L and one 100 L collecting from the garage roof (though the gutter has come down and I've rigged up a very dodgy temporary replacement to make do until the husband gets around to sorting it out).  

I don't have quite so many planters this year, as most of the large ones have gone to the allotment to hold strawberries and cherry tomatoes there.  The idea was to keep them out of the beds and thus out of the encroaching grass, but now all the pots have that same grass (at least it's easier to weed out)!  I try to visit daily to water them, and have been rewarded by both;  though the strawberries finished by July, the tomatoes are now in full swing.

Along with hand watering, my other main job (well, besides harvesting/cooking/preserving) is collecting caterpillars off my brassicas.  The purple sprouting broccoli in particular looks very bad (pictured above).  Every few days I'll take a bucket with a little water and start filling it up for my ducks:  brushing, picking, or shaking off caterpillars into the water.  

The ducks go crazy for these caterpillars;  they've had a few free range spells to go out and self-harvest, but they poo so much I really don't want them out there all the time--we want to go out there and enjoy the lawn and patio.  And they started self-harvesting my lettuces too--so they get a hundred or so caterpillars in a bucket instead (which take about 10 seconds for the three of them to slurp down).  I guess since the lettuces are nearly finished now I might let them have another day or two, and save me a job.