Well time has just flown by and now it’s almost the end of the summer. We’ve had an incredibly dry one, though the last month has seen a bit of rain. The place is looking great though with the vegetable beds really coming into their own and there is a ridiculous amount of food coming out of them. The squash have been very good this year, we tried a sunshine squash, which is a lovely yellow and has a really sweet flavour, also we tried something different with the butternut squash this year and put them at the front of the polytunnel, they are the best looking ones we’ve ever had! This year we have also had a real success with the tomatoes, we really suffered from blight the last couple of years, but not so this time round and we… well I am really enjoying sweet juicy tomatoes with olive oil.

Our system of piling cut grass on the beds seems to be an effective way of mulching the beds, we have found that the soil has managed to retain some of its moisture at least.

Our orchard is doing ok, though the pesky crows and magpies are ripping the fruit to shreds, I think we will have to net it next year. The blackbirds have also discovered the delights of our rasberries, however we had so many it really has not been a problem. For one glorious month we couldn’t keep up with our strawberries, even though the deer had eaten the leaves back to the ground, they recovered astonishingly well and produced a fantastic crop. What was a lovely surprise was the old apple trees, which we assumed were dying gracefully, have produced a huge amount of fruit this year. We have laid the hedges around them and clearly they had just been struggling for a bit of light.

The meadow has really come into its own this year, the whole field is humming with life, about 50 goldfinches are living off it at the moment, they hang from the knapweeds like little jewels, a fantastic sight. As you walk through clouds of insects such as bees and hoverflies are humming away whilst the grasshoppers sing in the undergrowth.

We also have a new kitten, he turned up in the log pile a few weeks back, with oil on his face and looking pretty sorry for himself, he’s currently playing round my feet and trying to climb up my top. Looks like he’s staying, though our other cat is not entirely sure about the whole thing.

And finally James has had time to sort out his website for his work www.seren-it.co.uk – the poor thing has been working ridiculous hours.