In the Southern Hemisphere, July is more or less the coldest month of the year. We might normally expect 2 or 3 frosts.

Here are some things I observed last month:

Tomatoes growing out of the compost heap.

Plums budding out.

Ducklings hatching.

Pumpkin seeds germinating in another compost heap.

Willows leafing out.

In the context of all of this it’s hard not to think about climate change. In the heart of winter that is a lot of warm weather activity.

Additionally, I also noticed more erosion along the stream banks. Although we’ve planted hundreds of trees to help stabilise the banks it will take a number of years for the root systems to establish themselves enough to hold the soil. This makes it a race against time, but then again so is pretty much everything these days.

Peace, Estwing