As a gardener, I have a great deal of admiration, respect and gratitude for the plethora of wild visitors who work tirelessly to pollinate my plants and keep them free from the army of pests whose sole mission in life is to inflict as much damage as possible. Continue reading
Tag Archives: wildlife
Bees deep in clover
Sunday afternoon saw me so engrossed in potting on some beans, mange tout and flower seedlings, that I wasn’t aware of Little Mudlets’ presence until she commented on the number of bees she had seen and heard, buzzing about the lawn, as she walked towards the vegetable patch. To be honest, the remark didn’t really register until a short while later, as we were walking back to the house, when I realised that, actually, she was correct and that the lawn was indeed awash with bees busily buzzing about their business. Continue reading
I’ll just have a coffee first, then I’ll start …..
Every day for the past three or four weeks, I have walked past the flower bed outside the back door and thought to myself “Really need to get that weeded and the flowers planted out” and then almost immediately followed that thought with “I’ll just have a coffee first.”
So the weeds got left and each time I looked at the bed I knew that it was going to be that bit harder to clear it. Part of the problem was that I knew the grass, creeping ivy, ground elder and other such tenacious bullies were going to put up a bit of a fight and by the end of the day I would be sore, so very sore and I really, really don’t like pain and don’t relish the thought of inflicting it upon myself. Continue reading
Friends and surprises in the garden
As I have wondered around my garden over the last few days, checking the progress of my plants, I have been delighted to see a host of tiny friends, busily munching their way through the thousands of aphids and blackfly, that have occupied every available bit of green. Everywhere I look I see them, these garden friends and a very welcome sight they are and whilst the Harlequin is by far the most common variety in my garden, I have seen a few Cream Spots and Two Spots hanging around as well. You see what I have in abundance at the moment are baby Ladybirds, dozens and dozens of them.
Swanning around.
What would you do if you walked into the enclosed Foundation and Year 1 play area of your school, during the half term holiday, and came face to face with a scared and angry young swan, who had mistakenly concluded that the sizeable rainwater puddle, which had formed on the sand box tarpaulin cover, was actually a pond?
Well that was the dilemma I faced last Thursday (24th October). Continue reading
Hedgehogs – a poem by Little Mudlet
We’ve never done anything like this before but both Mudlets have done really well, with Middle Mudlet getting a second for her vase of flowers and a first for a picture she did and Little Mudlet getting a third for her picture (they were in different age bands by the way). Continue reading
There is never a Hedgehog around when you need one!
The Wren, new shoots and the garden in July
The mangetout have fully recovered from the pigeon attacks of June, so much so that ‘pick the mangetout‘ has become an almost hourly activity for the Mudlets, with several handfuls per day making their way into the kitchen. i could really do with finding a sure fire method for preserving these – freezing them hasn’t worked in the past, as the pods are mushy and tasteless once defrosted. Continue reading