Nature heals …
Another day on the chocolate. A draining day yesterday and what would have been mum’s 97th birthday today.
First admin - and then into the vegetable garden for the big tidy. Dragging along.
We’re sitting in the orchard in warm afternoon sunshine towards the end of the shift drinking tea and I’m looking into the bare apple trees. But there’s a shoot with green leaves…?
Mistletoe emerging from apple branch
When I look closely I really struggle to believe what I see. Not just on one tree but three..
Mistletoe!
Now I love to see mistletoe on trees. Ok, it’s a parasite but what a magical one. It is said that birds like the mistle thrush eat mistletoe berries and then wipe their beaks clean on branches. Some of the berries stick and then root into the branch of the host tree. The plants will provide a nectar souce in the spring (the buds are already forming) as well as providing berries for winter birds. In southern parts of the country the mistletoe attracts rare specialist micro-moths.
This mistletoe is much more established… how did I miss it!?
In 2019 Jill bought me fresh mistletoe berries and I scraped bark aside and pushed in a mistletoe berry into each incision, Not just apples but also horse chestnut and lime trees.
It was an utter failure and I forgot about it.
Until today when the mistletoe showed itself.
On the subject of gifts, my uncle and aunt’s gifts of wild daffodils are flourishing around George’s Pond. Our native daffodils have none of the blowsiness of their cultivated cousins.
And their gift of snakeshead fritillaries continue to seed around our small meadow. Today I spot our first snakeshead flower of the season.
Wild daffodils love the sunny bank of George’s pond..
Nature heals!
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Began the vegetable garden count again at the beginning of March after a break..
Stored potatoes, apples and squash are not included in these totals.
Leeks 0.468kg
Purple sprouting broccoli 0.469kg
Parsnips 0.466kg
Carrots 3.757kg
Brussels sprouts 1.722kg
Total 6.882kg