Blackcurrants by the book

This afternoon I slowly pruned our blackcurrants 'by the book'.  This is one of the benefits of our changed lifestyle - sufficient time to reflect and to act accordingly.  So after having watched their leaves change to an autumn yellow it was time to attend to them.

Followers of this blog will know that we purchased three bushes on arrival in the north west and positioned two of them in the 'wrong' spot.  This therefore was their first full year in better conditions.  The smallest bush is closest to the edge of the border and in a slight wind tunnel.  Nevertheless it was putting up a new branch from its roots.  So I trimmed off weaker branches thereby making sure that the bush was open to air and daylight.  The second bush had grown about twice as much as the others and yielded some tasty fruit this summer.  Not as many weak and crossing branches here.  The third bush was also quite small and received the same treatment as the first.  It too was putting up a new shoot.

If I had had more patience and 'taken it by the book' I would have pruned all three right down to about six inches above the ground and waited two years.  Blackcurrants are tough, however, and they are making the growth now I first expected.  My next job will be to thin out the raspberries, whose space they share, now shooting up all over our first raised bed.

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Nectar point

At first I thought they were leaves fluttering down at random from the silver birches in the park, but then I looked more closely and realised that the brown marbled under-wings were those of the Red Admiral butterfly.  A handful of them have joined the bees I described in my last post in the search for nectar.  I consulted the butterfly book and found that towards the end of summer they will consume rotting fruit.  They also like to visit our Michaelmas daisies.

As the shade comes over our garden the warmth disappears from the daisies, but the butterflies know how to replenish themselves.  They fly up into our high hedge to catch the rays, settle, spread their wings and absorb as much of the solar energy as they need.  Then it's back down to the flowers, uncoiling their long tongues and getting that sugary stuff into their small bodies.  As a diabetic who can require glucose in emergencies I have sympathy with them.  Heat and light, food and flowers.  I need these too. 

Like this season's bees, they may not live much longer.  Some will hibernate over winter, some may migrate.  Most will die.  In spring some will emerge laying eggs on nettles, their food plant, and the process of metamorphosis will begin again.