Nuts

The walnut tree is looking wonderfully lush and is laden with flowers at the moment.

They have the most unusual male catkin flowers, which are the long dangly things in the photo, and female flowers, which are the nut-shaped things with a tiny quidditch snitch on top.

Each tree is self-fertilising and the pollen is wind-borne from the male to female flowers. The pollen is also very popular with honey bees, which can smother the male flowers on a warm day.

In mid-October 2020 and mid-October 2021 we had hard frosts which fried the walnut flowers and reduced my crop to 0 and 10 nuts each year respectively. This year’s crop is looking seriously promising and I’m looking forward to filling the nut jars at the end of the season.

It’s been a full day Chez Mima. Whilst Skyping lovely brother #2 this morning I baked the latest sourdough. It was such a shame he couldn’t smell the amazing aroma.

Once we’d finished blethering I headed out into the sun to plant out the onions (65 - enough I hope), leeks and celery. A quick lunch of soup and fresh sourdough fuelled me up to tackle the big task of the day: to clean the tunnel house plastic, inside and out.

What a horrible job! So I treated myself to a luxurious bath afterwards. The thought of it kept me going as I flagged half way through.

Bean supervised…