Outwitting the squirrels

I had so many good intentions about blogging more often, and now it's been a month since I last posted. Oops. August has been a lot of fun, but we've been out and about quite a bit.

Out in the garden we didn't get any apples last year from the two trees we were given as a wedding present. They mysteriously disappeared in the night before they were ripe. This year there are quite a few apples ripening, then I saw a squirrel making off with one of them (no, they're still not ripe). We weren't too impressed with the idea of the squirrels making off with our apples, so I did some googling and came up with a couple of solutions to try (along with a lot of completely impractical/bordering on the illegal solutions).

The first is to hang CDs or something else shiny in the tree to deter the squirrel. We had some CDs that had come free with the weekend papers so I've hung those up, and so far, so good. This is the espalier tree, which the squirrels have multiple ways of accessing as it's against the wall, so there wasn't much point trying to put a barrier in their way.

On the standard apple tree, which is too far from any fences for the squirrels to jump across to it, I've smeared vaseline up the trunk and the support pole, which has so far deterred them from climbing up there. It will eventually wash off in the rain though, so I'll have to keep an eye on it.

 
The tomatoes finally ripened, and have been absolutely delicious - we're now inundated with them! I haven't grown this variety before, as I usually grow bush cherry tomatoes, and these are cherry tomatoes that grow on a cordon. Next year I'll probably grow the same variety but put some better supports in. These were plug plants, from a free offer in a magazine, so I need to go and check what variety they actually are!

And the raspberries (Autumn-fruiting variety - Autumn Bliss) have started to ripen. I like Autumn-fruiting ones as they gradually ripen over a period of time so you don't end up with a glut.

We're also doing really well with the wildlife (apart from the unwanted wildlife, like the squirrels!). Birds now spotted in the garden include song thrushes, jays, blackbirds, great tits, robins, chaffinches, goldfinches, greenfinches, magpies, collared doves, wrens and dunnocks. In fact the birdfeeders are so busy they resemble a motorway service station. We (well, the OH, who is much better at spotting them than me) have also now seen several varieties of bees and butterflies.

Garden at the beginning of December 2012

It's looking a lot colder now in the garden and I've done quite a lot of chopping things back as the perennials have died down for the winter. Unlike last year the weather's been much colder with several frosts.

The walnut tree in next year's garden didn't have any nuts on it at all this year (presumably because of the bizarre weather) so the squirrels have been running around looking for things to eat. They dug up and ate my newly planted tulip bulbs so I had to construct this delightful looking garden feature to protect the area near the primroses.

 Constructing raised beds has been one of my jobs now that I'm working part-time and have more time available. I'm also rather proud of the fact that both are filled with home-made compost. The further bed has the remains of the comfrey plants on it to carry on rotting down over the winter. The nearer bed has garlic planted in it (with mini fruit cage to protect from the birds/squirrels/all the things that keep coming into the garden and trying to eat EVERYTHING IN SIGHT).

The apple trees still have a few leaves attached, but it won't be long now before they're totally bare.

Ice on the bird bath.

I love the colours of the leaves in this hydrangea - it's called Hydrangea Twist n' Shout and was one of the first plants I bought for the garden the first year we were here. It was a new variety that year, and I think is well worth growing as the stems are a pretty red colour too. I grow it alongside various heucheras, with purple and green leaves.

And I've sorted out the cold frame for winter - it was so nice to have time to do this properly! I have two fuchsias over-wintering under cover (one tender one has come into the house), cuttings of rosemary, thyme, sage and lavender, plus some sempervivums, four pots of broad bean seedlings just starting out and some penstemon plug plants I'm growing on to plant out next year. I've even gone all Gardeners' World and labelled things!

That's pretty much it for the garden this year. I have a few jobs to do - such as pruning the apple trees and I want to order a HUGE pile of compost to mulch at some point, but that can wait until 2013.