Lemon a day

 Morning glory  –  

NFS size 6 in x 6 in 15cm x 15cm watercolour on heavy weight rag paper

I went back to look again at the trees in the community orchard to choose five significant trees to concentrate my efforts upon.

I starred five trees to look at. Today I tried to key out a knobbly looking green apple. It has the look of a Codlin or a Catshead and in fact it has the internal structure as well. I also worked on a pretty red eater which seemed to come out as either a Lady Hollendale (very obscure) or Ingrid Marie, I am inclined to the Ingrid Marie which is a Cox descendant  which was used to breed Elstar. I begin to realise that apples are like thoroughbred horses they can all trace their lineage from a handful of famous forbears. Ribston’s Pippin begat Cox’s Pippin, which begat Ingrid Marie, which begat Elstar. Ribston’s pip which was grown into the tree was brought from France ( Cox’s Orange Pippin is really at least half French !! Its lucky the Mail doesn’t know about this, I can sense everlasting damage to patriotic pride would result)

On a different subject, there has been a beautiful full moon, I was waiting for some bad nights as last full moon some big moths got into the house and then as the moon shone on the window at night they bashed themselves against it trying to reach the light. Now, after I let them out, what did they do? I have to presume that they would continue flying towards the light source, the moon; as they got higher and higher at what point did they stop? Do they fly upwards until the cold air saps their energy? Does it do them any good? Hmm.

The tomatoes which came in from outside were beginning to show signs of blight. The recommendation in a magazine was to heat them to 40 degrees centigrade for twelve hours. I tried to do this in the dessicator. The temperature control was not perfect; however I have to report a partial success. Rather than seeing the healthy looking green tomatoes fill with blight just before they ripen, the tomatoes are mostly ripening. Where there is some blight development it has clearly been contained in patches and is not romping through the fruit. This gives one hope for the method.

My painting today is of the morning glory, it will not be for sale yet as it may have a taker already. The morning glory plants are now in full flower (they were sown very late). There are three colours and they are great every morning as long as the night has not been too cold. I have also found that the buds will open for several days if a stem is put in a vase.

#135 a painting a day by Alison Warner on her lemon a day art blog