One year on there is a real sense of the growing season ebbing away, quite a different feel to last September when everything was just starting. The weather was quite different too, scorching last year vs sodden this year. 

There are a few similarities, I’m back to digging and I’m planting strawberries again, I’ve even got another pile of weeds forming but this summer it doesn’t look like the heap will ever dry out sufficiently to set it aflame.

The strawberry bed was a mass of tangles, strawberry runners twirled around bindweed stems and I felt it was time to have a clean up. I’m probably a little late actually but I’m sure they’ll be happier with some breathing room now. It also gave me chance to clear out the last remaining patch of bindweed hiding underneath the pond liner.

Here’s the yearly progress shot from the water butt - anticlockwise: Sept 07, Mar 08, Aug 08, Sept 08.

I have slipped a long way back and can feel the pressure of a blogging backlog so I best bite the bullet and post these photos. 

A while ago I noticed reddish stains appearing on the tops of my pear leaves or at least one reddish stain on one pear leaf.

I humphed and pfftted a bit, but did nothing further. When my folks visited last weekend I sent them off to investigate and it seems that almost every leaf is now troubled and the underside has a peculiar spikey growth, reminiscent of an Ankylosaurus.

We picked it apart but didn’t find evidence of any juicy bugs.

Anyone know what it is?