Category Archives: Gardening

More Planters

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We managed to get one of the waste bins partially dismantled, which gives us the basis for a planter trough.

There were eight screws on the hinge and five came out easily. Two came out less easily. And the final one wouldn’t budge. I applied my jemmy. It still didn’t budge. Eventually I had to drill the head of the screw, which finally worked. Only two more to go, plus a bit of internal remodelling.

Wastebin – conversion to planter
Planter – first stage

I feel a bit retro using the term jemmy, it’s one of those words from the world of pea soupers and mysterious foreigners in Limehouse, along with rozzers, darbies and petermen. A lifetime of reading classic crime has certainly broadened my vocabulary.

It’s an on-going process, and we’re going to have a bit of work to do yet, but it seems a shame to throw them out.

 

Planters

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Julia’s group has finished painting the metal bins so they now have a fine selection of planters on the verandah. There’s a fig in one, a conifer in another and a strange combination of Echeveria Duchess of Nuremberg, thyme and chives in a third. Echeveria and thyme are fine but I have my reservation about the chives. Time will tell.

“Those slate chippings look familiar.” I said, vaguely remembering she’d mentioned them last week.

“They’ve been on the patio for years,” she replied,”you weren’t using them.”

Wives don’t understand the concept of keeping things in case they come in useful later.

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They aren’t just a garden task, they have provided a useful art and design project too.

She has been given some wooden bins too. The school has made some into trough planters and that’s Julia’s plan too. All we need to do is get the screws out of the hinges. Eight screws. Eight tight screws. Then we need to shorten them and dismantle the doors to re-use them as ends.

It sounds so simple…

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The Morning so Far

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It is grey, I can see parents taking children to school, but at least it isn’t raining.

I had a strange dream last night, involving stone-built houses, planning permission and failure. The first two came, I think, because I had fallen asleep in front of the TV during an episode of Grand Designs.  The feeling of failure, on the other hand, seems to have been creeping more and more into my thoughts recently.

It’s strange how negative thoughts are the ones that seem to persist. Yesterday I thought about plans for earning a living, new sweets for Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts and, by association, growing liquorice.  I then thought of other exotic crops, how James Wong has always disappointed me and gave serious thought to a seed bombing campaign.

I have no personal animosity towards James Wong, in case you are wondering, it’s just that when I’ve tried to grow his alternative crops they have never seemed worth the trouble.

I bought, for instance, two kiwi berry vines when we started Quercus Community. They are hardy, prolific and vigorous to the point of being invasive. Not mine. Mine are like a couple of stroppy teenagers, sulking and refusing to cooperate. When we did get fruit, which was not often, we didn’t get much and my dreams of selling bags of unusual fruit to boost our funds all came to nothing.

Painted Lady on Red Valerian
Small Tortoiseshell
Peacock at Mencap gardens

I keep telling myself that seed bombing is not the way forwards for my dream to make Nottingham the Butterfly Capital of the world, as it will invariably involve a lot of buddleia and make the locality look like a bomb site. Somehow I always come back to the idea though…

So there you are – my morning has consisted of blogging about yesterday.

 

Fortunately it is only ten o’clock so I still have time to pull things round. Has it really taken an hour to write this?

I must learn to type faster.

Summary

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In the past week I have, again, fallen behind with my reading.

This is true of WordPress, where I have once again not found time to keep up with everyone. It has also been true of my book reading. Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that I haven’t actually picked a book up, which is unusual. I did read part of a crime novel this week, but that was because I had three medical appointments and needed something to fill the waiting time.

I have been doing a bit on the net, and have read a couple of gardening magazines but that has been it. I also read part of a Daily Mail a neighbour lent me, but that proved to be a miserable experience.

Ebay, as you can probably tell from my recent ramblings, has been taking up too much of my time. I’ll cover that at length in a later post.

Medically speaking, everything seems to be going well. I’m not going to say too much as you never know what’s around the corner.

So, that just leaves the dustbins. Our bin day is Friday. This Friday is was the recycling and garden waste bins. I picked Julia up from work and we went for a coffee. When we returned home they were still on the pavement and the garden waste bin had a sticker on top.

It seems that the bin had not been emptied because it contained either bricks, breeze blocks, rubble, rope, trellis, treated timber, animal waste, plant pots, soil, wood chipboard, bagged garden waste, bagged domestic waste or food waste.

This seemed strange because when I looked at it I couldn’t see any of that. This is only the second time we’ve put the garden waste bin out this year, and it was only about 25% full and there wasn’t much for the heinous contraband to hide behind.

That’s why I ended up with the Daily Mail. It seems that local councils are taking a hard line on such things, even to the point of fitting up to seven cameras on a bin lorry. I won’t talk about litter, poor school standards or any other council issue, because all that is important is that they issue their quota of stickers.

I know that recycling is important, and needs to be monitored, but I think this is a bit over the top. I will be discussing it with them next week.

This isn’t just an idle threat, I really will get on with this one.

I’m fairly sure that they have opened the bin, looked at the hedge clippings and mouldy plums and decided that the plums are food waste.  In fact, with them coming straight off the tree they are garden waste. I would probably just have composted them, but Julia took them off and she tends to get rid of them so the mould doesn’t cause further problems. She’s more professional than I am.

I can see why they wouldn’t want food waste in there, but if a few mouldy plums are a problem where do you draw the line? Will yellowing cabbage leaves, ground elder and nettle tops all be seen as contraband? You can eat them so I would suggest they should be. What about rhubarb leaves? They are poisonous, but they are also waste from food. And tomatoes with blight?

The world has gone mad.

Of course, there’s a little voice at the back of my head suggesting that if we had better schools in Nottingham council employees might be bright enough to work out that mouldy plums are garden waste.

I probably won’t mention that in my email.

 

Book Review – The Wildlife Garden

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The Wildlife Garden – John Lewis-Stempel

Paperback: 176 pages

Publisher: How To Books (6 Mar. 2014)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0716023490

ISBN-13: 978-0716023494

Price £8.99 or £5,99 (Kindle)

I have read a number of books by John Lewis-Stempel and enjoyed them.  Several reviews can be found here. (That’s the book review page I started but didn’t continue. Two of his books are there.)

This is a comprehensive book and covers everything that you could possibly want in a clear and concise manner – garden design, ponds, lists of plants and notes on wildlife. If someone gave it to me I’d be happy to have it. If all you had to work from was this book you could produce an excellent wildlife garden, though a few more diagrams of feeders and shelters might be a help.

My problem is that I don’t feel the price represents value for money. £8.99 is a lot of money for a small book. After all, the information is available on the net and there are diagrams to go with it. You can also generally pick up illustrated books on the subject from charity shops for under £2.

I might be showing my age here, or my ignorance of the book trade, but £8.99 for a thin paperback, or £5.99 for an electronic version, just doesn’t seem like value for money. I know the worth of a book isn’t measured in its size, but I also know that the buying public (which includes me) is thought to buy on that basis. That’s why you sometimes find yourself reading a book with plenty of white space and a larger than usual font – they are trying to bulk it up.

Though my first impression was of thin book, my second was of a thin book that seems to have a Monarch butterfly on the cover – a rare migrant to the UK. I’d have preferred a proper British butterfly. I’m not impressed by that.

So what do you say? I like the author and the book is packed with information. I just think it’s over-priced compared to other sources of the same information.

Buy it by all means, but buy it as cheaply as possible.

 

 

Spiders, Shopping and Dead Butterflies

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A couple of days ago I noticed something fluttering in the front garden, It turned out to be the remains of a Small Tortoiseshell, enangled in a sider’s web. It was past help, but I thought I’d take a few pictures. If I ever need a picture of a dead butterfly with a spider I now have one in stock.

It was quite a cunning plan on behalf of the spider, stringing a web between the Red Valerian flowers and lying in wait for a passing pollinator. I imagine that it wou;d have preferred a nice juicy bee, but it got a butterfly. There must be plenty of food in a butterfly, but the wings are a bit of a waste.

I  tried to get some close-ups, but must have touched a web, as the spider made a rush for me, defending its lunch. In such a David and Goliath situation we were always going to have a non-traditional outcome. I was never going to fall over after taking a rock between the eyes. Fortunately the spider didn’t push its luck and, after a sneer, it went back to eating.

Moving forward to Bank Holiday Monday,  we went to the garden centre so that Julia could buy more plants. We always seem to be buying new plants. After the first half of the trip I hobbled back to the car, making much use of my walking stick, and allowed her to enjoy the centre without me holding her back. I am so noble.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with me, apart from laziness and the inability to put up with heat. I’m just a very bad husband. However, I was able to sit in a car in the shade and enjoy the breeze instead of sweating round a variety of converted polytunnels masquerading as a shop. I feel a little deception was good for my health.

Whether or not it remains good for my health if Julia reads this, we will have to see.

As I sat in the car I took a few photos. There wasn’t much to photograph, but when in doubt take a picture of things that look like a pattern. That’s why I took the pots and compost bags.  They aren’t good photos, but they look like they could be. The one with the pots would have been better if they’d been stacked on the level. Or if I’d noticed they were sloping when I took the photo.

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It was nice day, even if it was too hot for me, and even better when we were able to drive round with the air-conditioning on.

At least we weren’t disappointed by this garden centre.

More from Yesterday

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First stop of the day was in the garden with Julia.  A Robin was singing its heart out, Goldfinches were flitting round the treetops, two Cormorants flew over and a Green Woodpecker was yaffling in the trees. (Later, the woodpecker would visit the garden and perch on top of the large polytunnel.)

It was too cool for insects, but we had a window to mend and various other things to do. The glass for the window is going to cost £24. We’d spend that if we had a meal while we were out, but when it has to come from fund-raising, and when you consider it was broken by the worst burglar in the world, it is extremely irksome.

I did manage to get a dragonfly picture.

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Common Darter

At the end of the day, when I returned from Men in Sheds with the pieces of 16 nest boxes, there were a few more insects about, including a massive bee and a strange fly. The quality of photography was not good and I didn’t get much worth showing. The newly painted door has a frame now, and the planters have become white. The blue stripes are lengths of fabric from discarded blinds (skip-diving again) – it’s probably not a long-term solution but it saves paint.

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Have to get Julia to work now, will add ID notes later.

The dragonfly is a Common Darter.

The fly is some species of the sarcopaga family – flesh flies. You have to examine the genitalia closely to tell what exact species it is and, frankly, I don’t care enough to do that.

The bumblebee was massive. In pre-metric measurements it’s about the size of the end of my thumb. I could see it from 20 yards away. It’s probably a queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee.

In the Garden Again

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Dropped Julia off at work this morning and took the opportunity to take a few photos. They have, as you can see, picked a variety of produce, including sloes. It’s probably a bit early to pick sloes, as the flavour is traditionally said to be better after the first frost. However, you can remedy this by putting them in the freezer. If you pour the gin or vodka on them when they are still frozen it’s supposed to burst the skins, which means you don’t need to prick them either.

I can’t vouch for the flavour part as I’ve never done any competitive testing. Nor can I guarantee that the skins split. What I can say is that we use this method and it produces a lovely smooth liqueur in time for Christmas. Using the freezer instead of waiting for nature to take its course gives you an extra couple of months to steep the fruit instead of waiting for the frost, and this is bound to help.

There are plenty of apples and pears waiting to be picked, plus, of course, the medlars.

The door is now repainted after the attempt at breaking and entering, and is looking good.

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Finally, Julia has obtained five waste bins that were going to be thrown away. They are going to have a new life as planters. There were more available, but as Julia said, where are you going to get that much soil from?

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They were bins but now they are planters.

What is this life…

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What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

“Leisure” – W H Davies

I have, as I have said recently, been seeing more butterflies in the garden this year. It’s not due to good weather or better plants, just that I’m finding more time to stand and look at our garden. For the last couple of years I’ve hardly seen it.

I was reading a copy of Garden News from last month as I waited for Julia to leave work this afternoon. The head gardener from Helmsley Walled Gardens makes a good point towards the back of the magazine – make time to sit in your garden, consider improvements and enjoy it. She also suggests not over-gardening, but letting nature do the work for you. That’s my kind of gardening. I like her approach.

There’s a useful bumblebee ID chart on the garden website, though it’s slightly confusing that a buff-tailed bumblebee  has a white tail, as does the white-tailed bumblebee, and the garden bumblebee and heath bumblebee.

I have to ask about the wisdom of calling something white-tailed when it’s a common featureI also feel slightly cheated that the early bumblebee has a red tail, an ID feature it shares with the red-tailed bumblebee.

Anyway, enough of that, I’m going to sit and stare, at ebay, as W H Davies, may have said if he had lived longer.

Though I’ve just noticed Cockneys vs Zombies is on. It’s not the finest work Richard Briers and Honor Blackman ever did, but it’s not a bad film, and it’s streets ahead of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If only Jane Austen knew, she’d be emerging from her grave…

 

 

A Painted Lady Comes to Call

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I’ve had a few problems with WordPress today, including the complete loss of a post. This was annoying as I’d spent a significant amount of time looking for links and photos.

Julia picked plums in the early afternoon and saw a Painted Lady in the garden – another first for the garden. Added to the Small Copper and Hummingbird Hawk Moth we saw earlier in the year it’s all coming together nicely.

Hummingbird Hawk Moth
Small Copper on castor oil plant

When we left home to do some errands this afternoon we spent a few minutes watching the front garden and were rewarded by two small brown butterflies hustling past in the swirling wind, then a larger one, which proved to be a Painted Lady. It took some photographing, as it was quite skittish and there was a stiffish breeze once it left cover.

Painted Lady – Sherwood, Notts
Painted Lady on Red Valerian

We’re not doing too badly for butterflies in the garden, partly due to looking a bit more than usual and partly due to a good showing of Red Valerian. We’ve also had Mint Moths on the marigolds, which is a first, as I’ve always seen them on mint or oregano before.

As for the plums, Julia has picked over 200. As usual, it’s a case of picking them when ripe and then using them quickly before they start to go over. We’ve given some to Angela Across the Road, who gave us figs and tomatoes in return. We’ve also given some to the Young Couple Next Door, because they give us cake.

I’m going to make sure we feed the tree properly next year, and ensure the pruning is done properly. I’ve been a bit slapdash with pruning recently and it’s turning into a biennial bearer. This is my fault, not the tree’s. If the feeding works it should fruit moderately next year, which will take some of the vigour out of it for the year after. If not, it looks like I’ll have to remove fruit buds two years from now.

I think this all started about six years ago when we had a bad spring that killed all the blossom. The next year was a bumper year due to all the stored energy and the one after that we didn’t harvest any fruit at all. I should have got on top of it when we had the first bumper year, instead I added neglect to the problem by letting the pruning slip by.

We are having Plum and Apple Crumble for tea.

All in all this has been a good day.