A gardener should not go on holiday in August

We don’t normally go away in August but this year were invited to the Scottish island of Mull. Based on our previous experiences of Scottish Island holidays, Mrs GG and I loaded the 4x4 with enough luggage for a six week stay which included all manner of wet weather gear.

From the moment we landed on Mull the sun shone and never stopped. It was utterly glorious and, with one short exception, totally midge free. Then back home to the garden.

I don’t believe the sun ever shone here during our holiday, but it didn’t slow the lawn growth down one jot and in the warm conditions, everything grew. Someone came in to water the pots, urns and the greenhouse and all was well there. But in the veg cage I found devastation.

The wretched cabbage white butterfly caterpillars had emerged, I think just as we were driving away from the house. So by the time we returned they were enormous and many of by cabbage plants utterly skeletal.

I have removed by hand quite literally hundreds of them. Each morning I check and always find others and I do hate them. We have rain forecast and that will, I hope, help some of the les damaged plants to recover. Thankfully, the Brussel Sprouts were not attacked and are OK but the sprouting broccoli and Durham Early cabbage plants look in a poor state. That’ll teach me to leave them in August.

We have a reasonably large and productive walnut tree in the paddock. I say productive, but that needs some explanation. About now the pack leader of the region’s grey squirrel population arrives in the garden complete with clip board, pencil and whistle. We watch the little monster who seems to organise a huge population of his mates who march up the paddock, all in very orderly fashion, climb the tree and methodically strip it bare of walnuts.

If losing our total crop of walnuts isn’t bad enough, they then go into phase two of annoying the GG’s. Over the years we have assembled a number of pots and urns that house a wide variety of different plants, bulbs and shrubs. Mr Squirrel is positive that we do this to provide him, or her, with the perfect location to dig and scratch out soil to bury my walnuts. They scoop out absolutely loads of compost from the containers. Then, come next year, I have the task of digging up the sprouting walnut trees.

You do have to be very careful about handling these green walnuts. We often find half eaten ones around the garden and if you pick them up you risk an outbreak of Yellow Fever! No, not the killer virus that originated in Africa, but the yellow stain you get on your hands and clothes if you handle these walnuts. I believe it is called Juglone but it really does stain your skin and is very difficult to remove. That’s probably why grey squirrels – or tree rats as I call them – have horrid yellow teeth.

Happy Gardening!

The Grumpy Gardener