Everything has done well in nature this year so far. Rye has seen a lot of visitors, the Landgate Arch is in a sad state, At the very top of this marvellous relic there still grows a large, and getting bigger by the day, bush.
The old Further Education Centre really has blossomed and come to life and is well patronised. the Rye bonfire boys held their auction of promises in the Mermaid and raised a record amount, so guaranteeing this year’s celebrations.
The summer heat was slow coming this year and by the twenty fifth of May many plants were still covered up from the cold nights. In the day light the warmth was there but as the sun set so the warmth vanished, I know of four people that lost all their cucumber plants in the middle of May. I keep my courgettes, pumpkins and cucumber under cover in plastic bottles that had their bottoms removed. Like this, the bottles make wonderful cloches for small plants.
My father always said that the warm evenings never arrived until July and he was right, after the longest day the balmy nights arrived, but that is too late for sowing seed, to grown and produce veg that same year, you have to plant and grow plants into the summer to get a crop. The greenhouse was bursting full this year as I was afraid to put the young plants out into the garden. On the twentieth of May in my area we had a nasty heavy thunder storm that produced hail as it got dark, the hail lay on the ground like snow. The next day I recorded that the temperature had dropped to minus two degrees. Thankfully my cucumber, pumpkin and courgette were inside the plastic bottles and survived that hellish hail. Nine folk have come and seen me, to see if I had any plants left over to sell them. Some people were glad that I had a dozen well grown runner beans and half a dozen pumpkins and courgette. Alas, the garden centres soon sold out of all their stock.
The swallows are far and few around our house yet the martins make the numbers up as do all the large broods of mallard duck on the river. The kingfisher is forever darting up and down the river so he must have a nest close by, but this year I do not know where, Our owl box has a family of jackdaws living in it. I noticed a rather loud commotion the other day on the far side of the garden and on further investigation found three jackdaws stripping all the cherries that were less than the size of your little finger nail from the cherry tree, a net soon stopped their little game. I never knew that jackdaws could do that but last year a mate told me that the worse bird he had in his pear orchards were just such a bird.
Now leaving the garden behind, I saw on the news that California USA is in crisis through lack of water. Many years ago it said that the next World War would be over drinking water and not religion. This earth has only so much fresh water and not all is in the right place. Spain has trouble in its fertile region. This vast area is mostly covered in plastic, where they grow a lot of the fruit and veg to export. this area is irrigated from wells and as the water evaporates it leaves behind many chemicals and salts, These find their way into the under ground supply and as they pump them up, so they increase the problem. they do say that in the next ten years this area will become unable to produce half what it does now. The Everglades in the USA are slowly drying up thanks to all the underground water being taken from the underground sources inland to supply the growing towns and cities.
The Arctic may be thawing out but all that freshwater goes into the oceans so is lost to man unless he has the means of evaporating it into fresh. So many adverts on the telly ask for freshwater for the stricken to use around the world, even in Tibet the place flattened by earthquakes is short of that vital life given fluid we so much need.
The site in Rye beside the old gas works showroom now called the Kettle of Fish has been boarded up as they plan to erect a new building to house people. Still the Landgate Arch is looking uncared for and many High Street shops stay empty.
Jimper’s Jottings June
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