Harvesting garlic without the Delphic Oracle
The new laptop was sent to Cardiff by mistake. It should have arrived today. At least it will have toured some of the UK before we receive it on Monday and it enters a life with little rest. Meanwhile I have harvested our garlic. I bought three succulent heads from The Garlic Farm (Isle of Wight). The company was showing at Hampton Court last summer. I dried the heads in our airy greenhouse and planted the cloves in our sunniest spot in late September. Apparently the winter frosts encourage better growth. I need to keep a gardening diary...
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Today I was creeping gingerly up a roof to paint a gable. I looked up and spotted a collared dove sitting on a slim nest of twigs. If she was comfortable at this height why not me? I sat on the ridge and surveyed the view. A duck hatched out eleven ducklings yesterday and the brood were having fun on the pond. The moorhen’s chicks are growing fast. Unlike the ducklings they are kept well away in the reeds so seeing them is rare. But she still has three. After school three young lads (about ten years old) appeared by the pond with a fishing...
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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...
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