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| See the flower spikes sticking out? |
I have been checking daily if the vines have flowered. It's been so cold this year. Yesterday, I finally saw evidence of flowers on the Rondo vines, but none on the Solaris yet. In fact, the Solaris seem to have a few buds dying off -- turning black and remaining tiny. Last year, the Rondo started blooming on the 8th of July. This year, not until the 13th.
It's been a bad year in the food-producing part of the garden. The cold snap after everything started to grow stopped many in their tracks. I think we have two crabapples. Most of the cherries shrivelled and fell off. We have a good number of pears on one tree but the second looks like it's dying. There's definitely a fungus or something affecting the fruit trees and the roses this year, and the aphids were unstoppable. It's so frustrating.
The new Kubota RTV is working out well. It can mow the vineyard efficiently and effectively. Alex even mowed the rest of the field as it had lots of stuff the donkeys don't like to eat. It also helped move topsoil from the trailer to the polytunnel, although it couldn't pull a full trailer load - but even Lilly, our VW Passat, strained under the full load. We needed two trailer loads of topsoil at €50 each to fill the raised beds. Fortunately, Alex spotted an ad in the local paper for 'quality screened topsoil'. It turned out to be at the MayoCoCo Landfill and it was not screened. Full of shale but good loamy soil. I've been picking through the rocks as we fill the boxes. Apparently, good topsoil is very hard to get here now.
We are making good progress there. It's getting exciting. I've planted out some of the remaining lettuce seedlings and some tomato plants. I hope they weren't too stressed waiting for transplantation to recover. We have a lot of learning ahead of us as we learn what works in a polytunnel and when.
