A productive thicket

Yee hah, I’ve done the weeding. Before and after shots of the thicket of plants up at the top vegetable garden. I went up before 8am as this is the best time of a hot day to conquer weeds.   The heat doesn’t really take off here until 945am owing to our wonderful Mont Godin behind us.

And it was wonderfully cool under the towering asparagus plants on one side and the raspberries on the other.   The parsnips in the middle seem fine; deep enough to find moisture from the lower soil, and the cabbage are frankly sickly.

They are battered by a combination of neglect on my part, lack of water and being munched on by gendarmes.   Not the big nasty police, but the small red and black bugs that are either feeding or breeding and sometimes doing both at the same time.   I must confess they are dead satisfying to squish. They are also called punaise, mischief makers,  but if you want to be correct, it’s pyrrhocoris apterus.   I can only reduce the population as they fly in.   But for a few days at least the plant swill be left in peace.

Now I must go up and water lavishly and then settle down to some more weeding. In the shade.