The leaf-curling plum aphid (common name: ‘leaf-sucking bastard’) has officially arrived.

This is what they do:

They don’t actually harm well-established trees so much (and these are
trees which have so far not only survived a forest fire, but also two years
of my inexperienced pruning). I’ve been held up on spraying them because
it’s still very wet weather. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they won’t
have got too much of a hold by the time the rain eases up and I can spray
the buggers with garlic water (eco-friendly alternative to chemicals).
No point doing it while the weather’s unsettled, it’ll just wash off.

But I’m getting some value out of the rain. I bought four ‘cubes’ very
cheaply from the local paint factory, each capable of holding 1000 kilos of
water. They originally held water-based emulsion paint, which is easy to hose
out, and were delivered last week.

Their job is to store water for the 1/4 acre spud terrace. First job was to make
a level standing for them, which I raised blisters doing on Palm Sunday,
appropriately enough.

Very good exercise, for the voice as well as the abs and pecs – a bountiful Mother
Nature has liberally endowed the ground with a particularly vicious biting fly, and
I had a lot of fun thinking up new ways of describing them at volume, to the
bemusement of a shoal of passing cyclists.

Anyway, two hours, a palmful of blisters, a sore throat and several quarts of histamine
later, and the job was done:

In the background, the discerning viewer can make out the cast-off roof of a Lada,
which will serve as a catchment tray for rain.

In the last couple of daylight hours left, I also managed to clear another terrace:

I was ready for beer.