It is now mid July and its harvest time in the Walled Garden at Parke
Ranger Fred Hutt and volunteer Ellie processing the picked fruit
It has been a good year for red currants
Gooseberries and red gooseberries
Some more red currants still to pick
And some glassy looking white currants
We held our Dartmoor Senior Leadership Team meeting at Finch Foundry yesterday – I got there early so I could take a few photographs of the garden.
The garden is very colourful at the moment and is looked after by Catherine, an NT volunteer and her two assistants Sheryl and Mike – they do an excellent job – thank you
Alstroemeria aura Peruvian Lilly – I love the markings
A red monbretia
The Quaking Grass – Briza major
The garden also attracts lots of insects – here is a tree bumblebee – a species that has only recently arrived in the UK. See here for further details of the arrival of the tree bumblebee
A mating pair of the very common soldier beetle Rhagonycha fulva
And the black and yellow longhorn beetle Rutpela maculata
Finch Foundry is well worth a visit – see a bit of old industrial Devon and a beautiful garden – see here for more details.
Here are a few shots from Parke’s Walled Garden
Lovely display of miniature daffodils – they may be small but they are around the same size as wild daffodils!
Beautiful colours in these quince flowers
Almond flowers – really deep pinks and purples
Onions
The vineyard – still sleeping
The view from the top of the Walled Garden down towards Bovey Tracey
A few photos of some spring flowers at Finch Foundry yesterday
Winter hellebore
Crocuses
Primroses
Snowdrops
And a jackdaw on the chimney of Foundry Cottage
Glorious sunny day in the Walled Garden at Parke yesterday – here are a few photos.
Little bowl of daffs
The almond is flowering – pretty spectacular
It was swarming with honey bees and hoverflies – this one is the drone fly Eristalis tenax. These were the first honey bees and hoverflies I had seen this year
And here is an almond from last year
It is less than a decade ago that we started to restore Parke’s Walled Garden – here are a few photographs showing some of that work.
The walls are being ‘repainted’ with lime wash – the garden is still a jungle and the capping wall tins have yet to be replaced
Repairing the main wall
An old photo from the early 1900s – note the glass house and the box hedges around the beds
Major Hole’s gardener
This pit outside the Walled Garden used to house the boiler for the glass house – you can still see some of the pipework
It is good to see the Walled Garden now back in use and we hope that as the years go by and more money becomes available we will be able to restore some of the other older features that were once in the garden.
And finally the sunset over the Walled Garden yesterday evening
The Walled Garden at Parke is currently looking amazing – the fruits and many of the vegetables are coming up and are ready for harvest. Once ready all the fruit will be one sale at Parke (first come first served!) or will go to Parke’s Home Farm Cafe.
Grapes – both white and red varieties have done well this year. We will be juicing them on Apple Day later in the year – maybe wine in the future!
NB – these are the red grapes – the white ones on this bunch will turn red soon.
Don’t these apples look good?
Same goes for the pears
I just want to pick this loganberry straight off the page!
The figs are half way there – give them a month and they will be ready too
Tomatoes in the polytunnel
Hmmm – is this a marrow or a pumpkin? I suspect the latter.
