The Cottage Smallholder

Photo: Mystery plant

I love this time of year.

I watched a pair of butterflies canoodling for ten minutes this afternoon. Settling on the grass and then opening their wings for each other. If I had wings that beautiful, I think that I’d have opened mine too. They fluttered about the garden in between the wing displays, beautiful and intimate creatures on a mission.

Meanwhile I had been getting acquainted with giant spiders. The higher you climb on a ladder propped against a house, the bigger the spiders you meet. At the apex of the barge boards I met a giant. It was just an unsuccessful speed dating moment as the spider glanced at my brush and scuttled away. Throughout the afternoon this spider ventured into my life apperaring at key moments. Not helping, although it was large enough to wield a brush. It just added a frissance of apprehension. What will I do if I flush it out and it runs for freedom down my bare arm?

Meanwhile back at the cottage we are harvesting strawberries and raspberries. Finally after four years our raspberry patch is bountiful. I pick every morning for breakfast. You can’t beat just picked raspberries, yoghurt and honey. The evening pickings go into the freezer. This year I’m determined to make raspberry wine. A real winner according to Joanna’s Food. We have already made several bottles of raspberry gin. Doubling up the raspberries this time.

The autumn raspberries have the best depth of flavour but the July harvest is perfect for raspberry gin or vodka. The Guinea Fowl and chickens love any fruit that is tossed into their lair. The main fruit cage is beside the chicken run. When I step under the nets they are watching my progress carefully. I have two pots. One for perfect fruit. The other for more dubious specimens. The latter are guzzled gratefully by our flock.

On the peaky laptop front, The Newmarket Computer Company have finally decided that my old pal cannot be mended. Luckily they are a no fix no fee company. So as D snoozes above my fingers fly across his keyboard.

Meanwhile this beautiful perennial has started to bloom in the pond garden. Can any plant expert identify it? It was bought from the secret garden stand and the label was lost a couple of years ago. Even when it wasn’t flowering I loved its fronds. Our unidentified visitor is framed by Rosa Complicata and a very pretty pink fuchsia that was given by our friends Jocelyn and Miles.

Incidentally Seraphina and I went to the secret garden on the second Saturday in June to find no fete in progress. A few weeks later I bumped into the lady that tends this paradise. The local church had dilly dallied – planned to have the fete in their grounds and then realised that the uneven earth was a health risk so the fete is now going to be held on July 25 2009 at Shrublands, High Street, Fordham. If you would like to dive into a wonderful garden – don’t give this a miss.