Welcome arrival

So many days of rain that there's not been much to write about just lately. This woeful summer seems to be good for nothing but slugs - it's wet, it's mild and gardeners are mostly indoors.

Here slugs are coming in to raid the cat's dish in the porch each night, they're invading the rabbit hutch and last night they ate through the main stem of our sunflower, decapitating it. There was even a slug trail across the outside of the (upstairs) bathroom window this morning, so it feels like we're under siege.

One bit of good news though is that fox-and-cubs (Pilosella-aurantiaca) has arrived in the garden, bringing a splash of summer colour to the edges of the garden path. It covers on a roadside verge half a mile away from us and over the last few years has turned up in successive front gardens along our road.

And now it's reached us. I'm delighted; it's not a native to the UK, but is a well-established incomer. But reading up on it I'm thinking that I may not be so pleased in coming years; it's considered to be a invasive species in North America and can hard to get rid of.

Grow your own

At the end of the drive we've got a four foot drop down into the garden and in winter I put a bird table at the top of the retaining wall. I Iike to think that the extra height on one side makes the table just a little more cat-proof.

The table isn't there at the moment - I'll put it back in October. But the evidence of the birdfeeding operation is there to see because it looks like we're now producing our own seed mix.

My farming knowledge isn't that good, but I think the plants are wheat, or maybe barley. When I first came across them I was going to pull them up, but I've decided to leave them where they are and see if the 'crop' ripens.