Storm Ashley

It was another day of very few photos, which makes my task here a bit easier.

My excuse this time was the appearance of Storm Ashley, the first named storm of the new season.

Names are given to storms in alphabetical order, with a new load of candidate names selected each year, in advance. Last year's first storm was Agnes, in September, and the first named storm in the 2021-2022 season was Arwen, which became quite well known for its destruction.

It's not unheard of to have had a first big storm by mid October, but it still feels quite early. (The 2022-2023 season's first one didn't come until mid-February!) There are a lot fewer leaves on the trees than there were a day or two ago, which is a pity.

The next big storm, if it comes, which it will, is going to be called... Bert. Not my favourite name on the list. But, if it's a really bad winter, I've got Hugo, Poppy, Rafi, and Tilly to look forward to - which are all names in my family, at least if you squint.

Ashley brought heavy rain and darkness in the morning, and more of the same along with some rather strong wind in the evening and into the night. In the afternoon, however, there was a period of dryness and even some long spells of sunshine, so I took the opportunity to pop out into the garden to check that everything was properly secured. (Thankfully, everything ended up seeming to survive the storm).

One of the things I looked at was the patch, shown in today's photo, where I grew some potatoes this summer.

As you can maybe see, I've been a bit lazy with this patch: not only did I not get around to mounding up the potatoes, I didn't even bother harvesting them! There are several reasons for this. Firstly, I planted the potatoes late, and it's not the sunniest spot, so I wouldn't expect a high yield in the best of circumstances. I was also away during the time when they would have benefitted the most from mounding up. Also, the soil is poorly-drained very heavy clay, with little organic matter, and when it rains, the ground gets absolutely saturated, and leaves the plants sitting in water, which can't be good for them. And, I think again because of the soil conditions, this garden is absolutely filled to the brim with slugs and snails, and I currently do nothing to control them. And they like to eat potatoes.

The last time I tried to grow potatoes here, over ten years ago, there was little crop, and what did grow had been almost completely consumed by slugs and snails. Which was pretty demoralising. I expect I would find the same again this time.

My purpose in growing potatoes here was partly to have a bit of fun (it's nice to see the plants growing, and they're so easy to get going), but mostly just to have something harmless growing here, to start improving the soil. I'll soon be adding a load of home-made compost to this patch, and I'll possibly try to add a slight slope to the gradient, and possibly a ditch, to aid drainage. But that might be beyond my abilities and beyond my available time/motivation. What's the point if slugs are just going to eat everything. Maybe I should just turn it into a pond, along with the rest of the garden!

You can also see a wall that I'm in the middle of constructing, using odd abandoned bricks that I've reclaimed from here and there, mostly when I've been out on local walks and bike rides. I'm just waiting to find a few more bricks, and to make sure that I'm happy with how it's laid, before I mortar everything solidly into place.

I want to build the wall strongly, however, because its purpose is to hold back the heavy clay upon which the lawn rests. Which spends the whole winter saturated and is certainly prone to slippage. In other words, it's going to be a retaining wall. So maybe I'm not doing the right thing by reusing these bricks, and I should instead do the job properly with new bricks/blocks, or poured concrete. But I'm not sure, and the stakes are low at least. If this higgledy-piggledy wall fails, I can rebuild it.

In the left of the photo you can see one of many low-quality fence panels that I have been trying to life-extend with coats of paint and small repairs this year.

And to the right is part of the gravel path that I completely remodelled and rebuilt earlier this year, which including the addition of a much more significant slope up to the lawn. Previously, there was quite a step up to the lawn, which was not so convenient when using the wheelbarrow. This therefore required the construction of a wall between the path and the potato patch, which I have similarly assembled. but not yet mortared into place. I'll do it all at the same time, when it's a bit drier. (Indeed, I intend for these walls to interlock where they meet.)

I reconstructed the path because it had been almost lost to time and nature: the lining underneath it had disintegrated, its wooden borders had rotted away, and the stream of muddy run-off that comes from the lawn above in winter had left the gravel caked in soil, in which was growing grass and weeds and brambles and probably the odd tree. And it's important to have a path here because otherwise you're going to get filthy walking to the bottom of the garden.

Otherwise, given the weather, I spent the day inside, mostly at my computer, immersed in my vast photo library and in conversation with various friends.

I'm someone who is always keen to spend some time indoors, with a long to-do list of household chores and computer-based tasks, and yet finds it very hard to resist the allure of the outdoors when the weather is pleasant. So I welcome the occasional storm!