A Glowing Report

In mid-June Simon found a female glow-worm Lampyris noctiluca doing her thing on the deck of the mobile home we had rented for the week at Ville aux Dames. We have them in the orchard and I quite often encounter the larvae, but neither of us had ever seen an adult before.

Photographed with flash.

 Without flash.

A larvae, photographed in April last year.

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French Expressions: Tout sous la main = everything to hand. I wrote this down as a useful phrase I heard while watching television. I'm fairly sure it was a cookery show.

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A la cuisine hier: Walnut and Kidney Bean Spread, from Susan Voisin on FatFree Vegan Kitchen. I love bean dips and spreads and this one is a bit different and quite good. I served it on slices of baguette, along with tapenade on baguette, followed by a tomatoey couscous dish.

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Au jardin hier: I harvested the garlic yesterday. It has divided properly and formed quite sizable bulbs, despite the mild winter. I pulled some more white onions and picked the few berries that were ready (a tayberry and a few loganberries). The tomatoes, potatoes and chard are thriving. I picked a bag full of chard. We have a real mixture of varieties, thanks to seedlings from Potager Queen Pauline. Two of the plants are like wild seabeet, which is a real favourite with me. I pulled up the broad beans, which have finished. The coriander has gone to seed. The peppers and one of the aubergines are flowering. A gherkin had escaped my notice and has turned into a miniature watermelon lookalike. The zucchini has started to bear.

The sour cherries have been left too long and are now spoiled. I just didn't have the energy to deal with them earlier. The Black Hamburg grape has gone triffid and has huge leaves and quite sizeable grapes already.

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Bee Hotel: Ed Phillips, who writes an excellent blog about the wildlife he photographs in Warwickshire has provided an update on the progress of his extremely stylish and successful bee hotel which I thought some of our readers might be interested in.