The Countryside in July

July has been a busy month - hay has been made, the corn harvest started at the end of the month, and the soft fruit harvest has kept us busy!! Not only are garden fruit bushes to be picked, but there are also wild raspberries and bilberries out in the countryside, in clearings in the woods.

At the beginning of the month the hedgerow plant 'cow parsley' had gone to seed, and the 'hemlock' was starting to do so, but the white flowering umbelliferae 'hogweed', a much less dainty plant, stated to take their place. By mid month there was a tinge of browns and pinks creeping into the fields as the grasses started to flower.

Potatoes were flowering by mid-month, some with white flowers, and some a pretty purple, with the rows of dark green foliage no longer no longer appearing separate. The blue flowers of the linseed (flax) faded, the green seed balls started to form, and then the lavender blue of borage, another oil seed crop, took its place in the flowering order.

The brightest colour though, is that of the common field poppy - a brilliant red, sometimes covering whole grain fields or bursting into life along newly exposed soil such as occurs when new roads have been made, or mixing prettily with the other hedgerow plants.

The grain crops changed colour rapidly from about the first week, and at the end, much of the autumn sown barley had been combined, following which, large bales of straw adorn the fields, looking like alien invaders.

July is the month of the thistle!! Tall spear thistles, white 'ghost' thistles, large chunky dark purple 'Scotch' thistles, and the pale lavender common 'weed' thistle - which incidentally smells like honey!! You may not be in the habit of approaching these prickly customers, but the smell is worth the experience! There is a saying about thistles - "Cut in June, you cut too soon; cut in July, they're sure to die." I would add that you cut them around Full Moon when the sap is in the 'top' of the plant. Beware however - don't leave cut thistles lying around - for if the flower has started to form, then it will flower and go to seed even though cut - and will leave a nice little deposit of seeds for next year!!

_Meadowsweet

By the third week, four distinctive tall flowers had made their appearance. The 'rose bay willow herb', or 'fireweed', produced its purple flower spikes spikes; the sweet-smelling 'meadowsweet with its fluffy creamy flowers, the yellow 'ragwort' and the grey 'mugwort'.

Ragwort

Mugwort

_Bilberry

_Borrage