I have a love and passion for figs that verges on the compulsive. I have two fig trees and this summer the crop has been astounding as I have been feeding the Butternut Squash below the trees and thereby benefiting the tree, hence lots of figs. Regular followers of this blog know that I netted all the fruit trees a couple of months ago to keep out birds etc. I am happy to report that this has been very successful and we have been gorging on figs for at least two months even to the extent that I have given some away. However, and this is the sad bit. I harvested the figs each morning until the fateful day yesterday, when I was down to the last fig of Summer. I duly photographed this to share with you – the photo not the fig, don’t be stupid what do you think I am some sort of Socialist. Anyway, next morning I went out to enjoy my last mouthful of home grown fig – I had actually dreamt about the moment during the night. When to my horror I was met with a half eaten horror of a semi destroyed fig. At first, I must confess I accused my wife Cruella, as her teeth pattern matched those on the fig. But I let her off when I looked more closely and discovered beak marks; though to be honest she does have a prominent nose.
The first photo below shows the last fig of Summer in all its juicy splendour. The second photo reveals the horror of my unrequited tastebuds.
26th August: Things I have been doing lately.
🍉 Harvesting fruit: Although the great fig disappointment is now behind me I am now looking forward to a bumper olive harvest. The process of feeding Butternut Squash beneath the trees has again benefitted the olives. I only have two trees but the larger is positively weighted down with olives which I shall be harvesting in a few weeks. You can of course harvest your olives when they are green, but I prefer leaving them till they are black then you can be absolutely sure they are ripe. I will tell you all about the processing system in a few weeks.
The Butternut Squash are also almost ready for harvesting. Where these are concerned you leave the fruit on the plant until the stems and leaves fully die back, then you cut off each Squash leaving at least an inch or more of stem attached to stop rotting’ but I will talk about this more in a few weeks.
The great disappointment of the summer have been the Melons. You will have seen my recent photos of the ants feasting happily on my Melons (no innuendo intended). Anyway, they are all gone apart from one. The ants have triumphed and the photo below shows the last Melon standing (or more accurately lying). This of course has made me melancholy (couldn’t resist it). I may not grow Melons next year, but we shall see time is a great healer and my friend Daphne is working on an ant resistant mat in her secret laboratory so we will see. In case you are interested the photos below show a nice healthy Butternut Squash and the last Melon.
✂️ Cutting the lawn: I hope everyone is assiduously cutting their lawn. I know it is hot but that is no excuse for an untidy lawn. Keep cutting on a medium height and water at night. Next month you will need to do the last feed of summer and begin lawn repairs; especially where stupid Labradors scuff it up and blame each other. The photos below show our main lawn looking lovely after a summer mowing. Whilst the second photo shows one of our smaller lawns looking like the Somme with Nero and Tango blaming each other.
Spanish Garden 
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