Gardener's Delight

Tuesday, 17th August 2004
Wild West Yorkshire nature diary

There's a whirr of wings as I walk into the greenhouse this evening. A blue tit whizzes past my ear like a ball of feathers shot from a catapult.

Has it been searching for spiders around the top of the sliding door? (Which would be a good place to look, as I find an orbweb spun across the door frame every morning when I go to open the windows).

Or has it discovered that by perching on the rail at the top of the sliding door, tucked in under an aluminium fitting, it can roost sheltered from all the rain we've been having?

Between rain showers, a small blackish toad was out on the lawn this morning near the pond and this evening a yellowish frog is hopping around the patio.

Tasting Tomatoes

• Gardener's Delight is the sweetest but the smallest of the four varieties of tomato we are growing.

• Shirley is almost as sweet and more prolific.

• Golden Sunrise, the yellow tomato we've been growing this year, has been ripening ahead of the reds in this often dull summer. It has what I'd call a floury texture and a thin skin.

• Moneymaker, a red, one of the most popular varieties grown around here, is doing fine too.

On all the plants some of the leaves are now looking curled and blotchy, they might have a virus, but this doesn't seem to stop them cropping. You can't buy anything quite like a homegrown tomato in the shops.

We've grown basil from seed and its strident taste goes well with a tomato salad.

Our cucumber has done well too and is still producing large fruits.

A wren hopping around at the bottom of the hedge makes me feel that autumn isn't far off. We don't see them as often during the summer months.

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk