The beginning of September already. The hottest, driest summer anyone can remember ended with a little rain. The rainwater collection tanks and damp meadow gratefully absorbed it, but where the ground was compacted, the rain barely made an impression.

Rainwater collection tanks – spot the difference…

For this working party we ended up with a huge cake to workers ratio as many people were either away or working. We still achieved a lot though (yes, it might have been largely cake-powered…)

In the next couple of months, we plan to dig out scrapes/ponds, so we used this working party to thin some of the Great Willowherb that has managed to flourish this year despite the dry weather. We added it (and any pulled up Stinging Nettle, Hedge Bindweed and Field Horsetail) to the top of the dead hedges – hopefully if the roots are drying off in the air, and not in contact with the soil, nothing will be able to grow and instead the plants will dry out!

At the start of Autumn, you’d expect to see a lot of Garden Spiders, and we saw absolutely loads of them today – beautiful webs spun between grasses, willows and other stems. Here’s one spinning up a Daddy Long Legs that was unlucky enough to get caught in its web…

Thanks to Janet, Dez and Mr T for today.