Monday 18th July 2022: Today could possibly be a record breaking day here in the UK as the temperature is set to climb up near 40c and possibly 41c 🙄🥵 That is insane for this country and possibly a warning of what is yet to come 😏 I was up early as you can imagine, I have done all I can to prepare the garden for todays heat, I have no idea if it is enough I am just keeping my fingers crossed. No doubt I will lose one or two plants and some of the the bigger well established shrubs are already suffering from lack of water. This will have a knock on effect for the top fruit because lack of rain means the fruit is not getting any moisture and it won’t swell, indeed if we continue to have no rain they will shrivel and die altogether. These are the things we need to be mindful of when thinking about climate change and how it will affect us and future generations because it is going to have a big impact. I really feel that we are entering some kind of Armageddon, without being too dramatic we have war, drought, flooding, fires and disease, I mean was there ever a clearer message to mankind 🤷♀️
On a lighter note 🤪 this mornings jobs were cutting flowers, some for bouquets, some for drying and some for trying out a different drying technique. Once the flowers were all cut I made sure the hedgehog was fed, I have had to give her a bigger bowl to eat from now she is consuming much more food. I made sure there were bowls of water out for birds, cats, other hedgehogs, bees, in fact anything that needs a drink can hopefully find a source they can use somewhere out there in the garden (in the shade of course). By 9am it was already hot, John had done all the farm animals early this morning before he went off to work (he is working in an old cottage with thick walls so it will be nice and cool in there) I fed the torts, they will eat a lot in this weather and they are very speedy too lol. Then I sorted out all the dried flowers that have been drying in the kitchen, they have all moved to the pantry now and I have the next lot hanging in the kitchen to dry. Plus I have put some flower heads in silica (like the little sachets that come with shoes etc, it can be reused many, many times) to see how well that works, you can do that then microwave it but I am going for the longer method of putting them in an airtight container and extracting the moisture slowly, hopefully this will retain more of the colour. After that was all done and I quickly hoovered up I sorted out dinner for later. I don’t want to put the oven on today and so I am using the slow cooker which I would normally only use in the cooler months. I went round and closed all the windows and shut the curtains and blinds putting up extra cover on some of them. Our front three windows which are south facing filter out UVs luckily 😁 on a colder day it’s a bit of a pain that they don’t allow the sun to warm the room but on days like this, yippee 😁 I have even put a cover up on the little window on the stable door, I pinned a doubled over tea towel up there 😝 anything to keep the heat out and the cool in.
This all might seem dramatic to those who live in warmer climates but we are just not used to it and we are also not geared up for it. We tend to have large windows to let maximum light in during the darker months, more glass area means the house heats up, useful for winter sun, not for extraordinary summer sun. Most of us don’t have air conditioning, nor on the whole, do our shops, offices or public buildings, we just about have it in our vehicles (though ours doesn’t work 😬) We don’t have cellars or cold storage other than a domestic fridge or freezer and although my pantry is cooler than anywhere else, it’s not insulated well enough for abnormal heat spikes like this. So you can see we are ill prepared for 40c, add to that the fact that most workplaces will still expect staff to turn up for a days work and you can see we are going to run into problems. Some places are closing for the day, the majority won’t and I feel sorry for those who don’t have a choice. We have rules for working in minimum temperatures in the UK (rules, not laws) but we have nothing similar for maximum temperatures because on the whole the matter never arises. Schools are normally constructed to look like giant greenhouses, big windows for maximum light so stop the kids nodding off 🤭 We just never considered that heat like this might become the norm but if it does we need to sit up and pay attention and get our act together pdq!
I spent the evening from 8pm (that was when it was finally comfortable enough to go out) until after dark, checking things over, making sure everything had enough water and was doing ok. One or two of the plants had suffered badly, one of the squash plants was at the point of collapse, the other 9 were fine so no idea why that one, I gave it a good long drink. Also some foxglove plants in pots that I had been growing on until I can plant them collapsed, all the other plants around them were fine. Again I gave those a good long drink, moved them to heavy shade, recovered them with shade netting and hope for the best. The hedgehog has been moved to a cooler room as the heat was building too much in the pool room, the horses water has been moved to a more shaded area closer to where they are choosing to stand in the daytime heat, they don’t have to go far to rehydrate then. I did as much as I could do in order of priority, just hope it is enough.
Tuesday: The night was not quite as bad as I expected, though it was warm I did manage to sleep most of the night. Up early this morning when it was nice and cool, I flung open all the windows to make use of the cool air and closed them about two hours later to keep out the rising heat. The two lots plants that I had to rescue have revived but they have searing heat again today so who knows what will happen to them. I did water in the poly tunnels but that is all, it’s a case of just keeping everything ticking along until the temperature drops again which hopefully will be tomorrow 🤞 still no sign of rain though 🙄 A good thunderstorm would be a bonus right now. It is already 24c indoors and I can’t get it any cooler than that, we definitely need to think about how we go forward because I don’t think this is going to be the one and only time we hit these temperatures so we need to gear up for them really.
I am going out early this morning with Charlie, we are going for breakfast, it’s my birthday treat from her. My birthday is a couple of weeks away yet but her due date is not far behind so we are going now while we can. We didn’t bank on it being the hottest day ever mind you 😝 thank goodness for air con in cars these days, when I was young air con was an open window 😂
Well what a treat that was The Yurt at Nicholsons (Bicester) if you have never been then I urge you to try it out 🥰 The breakfast, and I had Turkish eggs, was so delicious, seriously good food. The yurt is awesome and even in this heat it was ok to sit in without feeling too hot. One of the best bits, though it was all totally fabulous, was that I received a birthday card on arrival and the yurt supports Women in the Wild in the Maasai Mara who grow and plant indigenous trees to help with things like soil erosion, shade and climate change. To celebrate my birthday (and anyone else who goes along for their birthday) the yurt supports the growing of a tree in my name 🥰🥰🥰 I just absolutely love this, it’s amazing, the world needs more trees, I am always saying it and right now an extra one can be grown in the Maasai just because it’s my birthday and I ate there, big fat ✔️ from me 😁
Not much done for the whole afternoon but once the early evening arrived and there was cloud cover it was out to water and check on how things had managed. There are a couple of losses that I do t think will recover but on the whole not too bad, I say that glibly because that’s just the things I have been watering. The plants I haven’t done because they are low down on the priority list have all but collapsed, under the apricot tree for instance were herbs I planted, feverfew en masse, a couple of rhubarb plants, a thornless blackberry and some asparagus. I just couldn’t do those as well so they have gone by the by, they may recover they may not and only time will tell. It tried to rain, we had a few spots, I kept on watering regardless as that was never going to make much difference. I spent most of the evening moving the sprinkler around and giving some of the beds a really good soak, the rest I will do in the morning. I also spent some time picking purple French beans, carrots, kohlrabi and hunting for the hidden cucumbers. There are tomatoes that are ready but I want to leave them to see if this year I can get a whole vine ripened, never managed it before maybe this is the year 🙄 I am totally done in now, the temps seem to have dropped slightly, I am hoping they drop some more overnight, I will be very happy to get up early if it is much cooler than the last couple of days.
Wednesday: Oh soo much cooler plus we have had a splash of rain, not much but we will take anything at the minute. I had bouquets to make up for later on in the day plus I did a couple of jam jars and got all the veg out for sale in the shed. I got the dinner prepped ready for later, it’s a full home grown/locally grown dinner tonight 🥰 At lunchtime Sam came with the children and then Shelley came with hers, schools out for summer 🥳 well the kids will be happy anyway, the parents not soo much 🤪 After delivering two lots of flowers late afternoon it was get the dinner on slow to cook, have a cuppa and a sit down, not rush out to water because we had a drop of rain. Great really because I feel really tired and my finger joints are playing up, must be something going on with my system so it’s good to have a restful evening.
Thursday: A quiet day on the whole, I did plenty of the usual jobs plus a fair bit of weeding and some cutting back some seed collecting and cutting for dried flowers and grasses. Shelley came over with the children at lunchtime for a couple of hours, after they had gone Sam came with the twins for their Thursday session while Mia was swimming. Today I introduced the twins to fresh tomatoes from the plant and showed them how cucumbers grow. The taste test was approved by George in both cases but not by Lucie 😂
I discovered why it was quiet when Sam came and she said the road is closed, is it that was news to me 🙄 Apparently there was a water leak and Thames Water was fixing it so they closed the road. John and I went and had a look in the hole they had dug and it seemed like they had taped it up and were coming back hopefully tomorrow to fix it properly and reopen the road. By the evening cars were ignoring the road closed sign and squeezing past the mound of rubble they had dug out and left in the road surrounded by plastic fencing. It was pretty annoying as our egg customers could get through from that end and I felt that if they had put the rubble they dug out to the side a bit more they could have left the road open 🤷♀️ Bearing in mind that they might turn the water off tomorrow to fix it I made sure everything had water or was well watered.
Friday: I was up early and getting on with tidying up the front area where I have lots of plants in pots, I potted up a couple of other things to put out there, fed it and watered it all and weeded all the pavement cracks and it’s looking much better. I want to go and get some bedding plants which is not something I normally do but all the grass and paddocks are looking brown and dead so I thought that might cheer things up a bit No sign of any workmen by 9am and by this point a huge lorry had decided he wasn’t going round and moved everything to the side so it could get through and plenty of cars were still going through as well.
I went to Witney with Charlie who was having a blood test, we stopped and had coffee beforehand then a mooch around the shops and some lunch afterwards. When I got back about 1.30pm there was still no sign of any workmen 😏 but people seem to be ignoring the road closed sign which is just as well really, don’t close the bloody road and then not bother to come back and fix it, I doubt they work weekends either so when will the hole get filled in?
John came home early and we went to get some singing colour plants for the front area, I should have got them earlier in the year really as there was not much zing left 😁 But I managed to find some plants to buy 😂
I got in touch with Thames Water and they apparently have a permit to close the road until the end of Monday 😏 No need to close the whole road off, people are still moving the signs and barriers to get round or they are driving on the verge and quite frankly I don’t blame them 🙄 Meanwhile I am very depressed about the whole egg sales situation 😢 I am doing all I can as it is trying to get people to buy eggs, for some reason it has become very difficult to shift them and now a road closure is the icing on the bloody cake. I am not in a happy place regarding that topic today, seriously I just feel like shutting the gate and saying nope, not doing this anymore, I’m done. What will happen is that we will carry on but definitely won’t be replacing any chickens that die or get taken by the fox. It’s not just the road closure, there just doesn’t seem to be any interest in eggs or veg anymore 🤷♀️ and it’s depressing to keep flogging a dead horse so I’m not going to bother. Meanwhile though the eggs are piling up and even more depressing is that you know if you put them up for free there would be loads of people willing to come and get them then 😫 Oh woe is me today 😔
To add to my misery the bloody crows keep landing in my cooking apple tree and raiding it, with the amount of crows we have around here they will strip it in no time at all, they stripped the cherry trees, they strip everything, it’s a bad day folks.
Saturday: I am altogether in a better mood today 😝 I know they are first world problems but sometimes they weigh you down and it’s ok to acknowledge that, sleep on it and move on 😊 I was up early today no for any other reason than the dog was barking, obviously something about outside so I got up and let them out and then carried on with the day. I did a bit more hoeing, weeding and sweeping in the front drive and although the grass is dead it’s looking tidy. Still no significant rain despite it looking like something will happen at any minute 🙄 I am sure eventually we will get a downpour that doesn’t stop for days 😂
It’s a busy time of year for flowers and plants and I have been collecting seed, cutting for dried flowers, dividing some plants, potting some plants on, feeding plants in pots and generally making sure everything is growing away healthily. Anything that isn’t is either fed to see if I can revive it or discarded if it gone past the point of no return. The ‘big guns’ are flowering, dahlias, cosmos, zinnia, gladioli, all delightful pops of colour and exquisite form 🥰
Today is George and Lucie’s 3rd birthday, where has that time gone lol. They are at the most delightful age, an age I love because they come out with the funniest things and you can hold a conversation with them and you never know how it will develop 😂 At three they are always happy to see Nana and readily give hugs and kisses, by school age that’s not very cool so I take what I can now. It has been fascinating watching them grow together, they always have each other, sometimes to bounce off of, sometimes to fight with, sometimes to share with but the one thing they always do is look out for each other, one will always ask where the other is if they can’t see them, definitely a bond there that will never be broken 🥰🥰
Sunday: Still no rain, things are looking grim, the verges are brown, the fields are brown, even big trees are beginning to drop their leaves 😢 I am battling every day to just keep things alive and feeling like I am losing the battle. I am exhausted trying and it’s getting me down, I feel that nothing is ever good enough, no matter how hard I try there comes a point in the year when everything is hard work. It can be all kinds of reasons, too much rain, not enough rain, too much sun, not enough sun, too windy, pests, disease, or usually multiples of them all at once. I have seen one flower farmer further North who has lost a massive amount of her flowers due to the high temperatures, they are just scorched 😔 At least it’s not that bad here but still it feels pretty rubbish today.
I have had some good things though, the tomatoes are doing really well as are the cucumbers and this year I have had great success with peppers. I have got way too many though as nobody seems to want to buy veg this year 😂 that’s fine, next year I will just be growing enough for us, that will give me more time for other things. It feels like everything is going uphill, a general state of flux is what I thought today.
That’s it for this week, Hilda is doing fine, eating loads and escaping out of her run every now and then, it should be another couple of weeks and I will be able to release her. I will keep on feeding her if she stays around, at least that way I will know she is well enough to survive the winter.
Have a good week 🥰
frieslandfarm (flowers) 