Sunday 12 April 2009

I'm a well trained human!


This little robin had gotten quite tame last year, and I havn't seen him for months. I was in the garden a couple of days ago, and he was hanging about. I thought maybe he wanted a top up of seed. I buy a mixed songbird mix, and usually athe starlings eat all the best bits, the suet pellets and insects, leaving only the boring plain seed. So I topped up the seed, but no, that wasn't what he was waiting for. He started flitting about, following me around the garden. Then the penny dropped! He was wanting mealworms! Live mealworms! He must have remembered that last year I was putting them out for him, and this year he has come back!! Isn't that amazing!! so i hotfooted it to the local supplier and came back with fresh lovely wriggly mealworms. He has been in and out all day so he must have babies somewhere. It is such a privilidge for me to be his human! He has trained me well!

Sunday 5 April 2009

Hotch potch and promises

This is definitely my most favourite time of year, full of the promise of longer days, shorter nights and sunshine to follow! I took advantage of the early spring sunshine to get outside and use my much neglected camera. Here follows a hotch potch, pictorial story of spring that enhanced my day.Plot 44 all ready for the onslaught of veggies just waiting for favourable conditions to permit a frenzy of transplanting!The Morello Cherry tree just waiting to burst into action!Fruit buds all ready for the signal to go..The gooseberry bush already on its way to producing sweet delicious fruit for jam making....This Cranberry bush is in its 4th year and I still hav'nt had any cranberries yet!Raspberry bushes, Joan Jay just waking out of hibernation ready to produce lots more wonderful fruitOur shed after its annual spring clean!!unforced rhubarb..........Early peas, Meteor I think.......... or could be Feltham First....... Broad beans and Blue Lake climbing beans hardening off.....onions and garlic coming along nicelymy favourite weeping cherry tree just bursting with blooms... this must be one of the most photographed tree in my albums... I never get fed up with looking at it, it is soooo prettyThe Girls enjoying a dust bath under the trampoline......Rosie stays amazingly white!! Despite chucking dirt all over herself on a daily basis!
butternut squash seedlings, my favourite discovered since allotmenteering, vegetable!What am I going to do with all these courgette plants!My favourite Narcissi.. not only very pretty, but also scented.....dont know what its called tho!Pepper plants growing away beautifully on my kitchen windowsill........
Shallots growing in a discarded storage box..............cauliflowers and kale..........tomatoes and cucumbers...............the list is endless........I think the sunshine even made my brain grow!!!! Amazing!!!!!. In the front garden I have a large palm tree of sorts that drops its long straplike leaves all over the place! I usually go around picking them all up and chuck them in the bin. I dont even bother to compost them as they are so tough. .......But today I had a brainwave.... I collected up the leaves and used them to weave around the window boxes in an attempt to strengthen the coir that had become loose and was losing compost. I think it will be a success... see for yourselves! Recycling at its best!

The leaves are really tough but look attractive too! This was such an ingenious idea I feel it should merit a posting all of its own! Scuse me while I repeat myself!!