Picturesque Bird Table

Thursday was mostly dull but the rain held off until late afternoon. It was quite mild in the early part of the afternoon too.

Usually one of my first jobs of the day is to pop outside and replenish the bird tables and feeders. In winter it's a job to get done as soon as possible and get back into the warmth of the house. At this time of year it's often a far more leisurely job and I have a look around the garden to see how our borders are filling up and check inside the greenhouse and cold frame to see if any watering needs doing.

I thought this morning how much more pleasant it is to sprinkle some seed on the bird table with the crab apple, John Downie in full flower along with rhododendron, Elizabeth. I don't suppose for one minute the birds take much notice in the change of scenery.

My morning inspection revealed that our garden fruit is progressing nicely at the moment. Our potted cherry tree Stella looks as though it could live up to its name and give us a stellar crop of cherries this year.

There's still plenty of time for things to go wrong before we're harvesting any cherries but at least some of the flowers have set fruit. In the greenhouse our apricots are progressing well.

The fruits are continuing to swell. We have lost one or two fruits that didn't progress much from the immature stage. They dried up and fell off the tree. So far though so good.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett