Beetle grubs may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I’m always amazed by them. I was emptying out one of the large plastic flower pots in the garden and found ten large larvae of the rose chafer (Cetonia aurata). We often get a few adults of this large and attractive beetle in the garden each year. They are particularly fond of the blossom on the rowan tree. I moved all the larvae to a... Read on
Today is a very special day for me, it’s the first time that I’ve seen an adult frog (Rana temporaria) in our garden. We know they must visit as we’ve had frog spawn for the last two years. However, in four years, we’ve not actually seen an adult frog in the garden…. until today. I was doing a bit of weeding in the flower bed closest to the house when I spotted this handsome individual:... Read on
It was a warm day today and it obviously brought out some of the early spring insects. There were many solitary bees buzzing around our daffodils. They looked like mining bees to me so I suspect they’ll be looking for bare patches of earth to dig burrows in too. I also spotted this adult green shield bug (Palomena prasina) crawling along the branches of my loganberry: Having now received my veg seeds for 2008 I... Read on
Today I saw the first butterfly of the year in the garden, it was a Small white (Pieris rapae). The butterfly was flying round the agricultural mustard that I planted as green manure on the vegetable plots. The agricultural mustard has also started to flower, apparently you’re supposed to cut it down before it flowers but the flowers are great for bees and butterflies that are out and about in spring. Read on
The Blackthorn/Sloe (Prunus spinosa) plants in my native hedgerow are also in flower at the moment. These shrubs were only planted in December 2006 and were bare root stock. They didn’t flower last year but obviously they’ve now had a year of growth and are flowering this year. Hopefully we’ll get lots of fruit and can produce Sloe gin 🙂 1 Response to Sloe to flower Carol Greenwood says: April 3, 2008 at 3:25 pm... Read on
The Victoria plum tree at the bottom of our garden is covered in blossom. Well, given that it only produced a handful of flowers last year I’d say it was covered… It certainly has more than ever before and hopefully we’ll get to eat the plums this year. Last year the tree only produced a couple of plums and these disappeared shortly before reaching full ripeness. I suspect they fell off and were eaten. Read on
After a bit of a false start with my greenhouse staging, I’ve now built everything and the greenhouse is ready to go. The staging seems very sturdy and I’ve been quite impressed with it. It’s standard, two-tier upstaging from Two Wests and Elliott. I’ve got a long 5ft 9in set on one side of the greenhouse and two sets, 3ft 10in each in length, on the other. Read on
I’ve now ordered my veg seeds for 2008. As in previous years I’ve ordered them through The Organic Garden Catalogue. This year I’m going for: Brussels sprout Cabbage Roulette F1 Carrot Nantes 2 Cauliflower Snowball Climbing bean Blauhilde Courgette Partenon F1 Cucumber Gerkin Adam F1 Fennel Finale Hot pepper Early Jalapeno Hot pepper Habanero Leek Pandora Lettuce Salad Bowl Lettuce Tintin Marrow Scallopini Yellow Melon Sweetheart F1 Onion Red Baron Parsnip Turga Pea Ambassador Pepper... Read on
