Wulf's Web-Den

I have finally finished publishing my photos from June with three shots of a stag beetle (Lucanus cervus) from out back garden. It was dead at the time, so I could pose it without hurting the beetle, but had been around the garden for several weeks. I don't know if its death was entirely natural causes or assisted by the local cats, which I had caught treating it as a plaything several times.

This was a female but we had also seen a male (distinguished by much larger "antlers"). We have plenty of piles of old wood in our garden, which is is the favourite site for their grubs, so we may see more in future years. If we do, we will have to remember to register them with the Stag Beetle Helpline, as the population is believed to be under threat due to changing habitats (eg. most people keep their gardens too tidy to have piles of old sticks that go undisturbed for long periods).

I am now fully up to date with my photos so plan to do a bit more photography in the coming weeks, both of the back garden and other subjects.

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You may recall me writing about a product called the Droughtplug Recycling Kit, to which I gave a relatively poor review. I did manage to get slightly greater success but then, after that, I had another day when it hardly worked and the plastic plug adaptor showed signs of starting to break.

Earlier this week I was thinking about the problem of getting grey water from the bath out to the garden and did some reading up about siphoning. The idea struck me that if I manually lifted the water from the bath to a higher container in the bathroom, that might give me more success in siphoning it outside. Sure enough, it worked. I tried it this morning, using an old beer brewing vat that hasn't been used for that purpose for years. Sitting on the toilet seat was still too low but the windowsill was high enough to allow all the water to be siphoned out of the window.

This isn't as labour saving as being able to siphon directly from the bath but, unless we set up an underground storage tank, is probably as good as it gets. It is certainly easier to use a small bucket to fill the vat and then siphon from the vat outside rather than what we did last summer (filling the vat and then carrying it outside). Of course, the vat does need topping up but there is enough space in between to do things like make a cup of coffee or check my email.

Time to water the garden!

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A few weeks ago, we spotted a few of this iridescent bugs on our rosemary bush and some other nearby plants at the end of our garden. We tried looking them up in our bug book but didn't find any clues as to their identity.

Yesterday, there were a lot more of them and the rosemary was clearly suffering damage so we decided to take action. I squished about a dozen; this one had a short photo session before joining his flat mates. I posted the pictures on Flickr and, within a short space of time had an identification back. These critters are rosemary beetles (Chrysolina americana) and, despite their beauty, definitely fall into the pest category.

Rob, the fellow Lewisham blogger who identified them, also provided a handy link to some further reading. The page from the RHS was particularly helpful. It turns out that these insects are a relatively recent visitor to British shores from Southern Europe but have become well established over the last decade. I reported our find to contribute to their data on the spread of these wee beasties.

It also turns out that, when not munching on rosemary, they like thyme, sage and russian sage (Perovskia), all of which are growing down at the same end of the garden. At least I know where to look for them!

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I had time yesterday to do some more fiddling with the Droughtplug Recycling Kit I reviewed on Friday. I had a greater level of success but it was far from unmitigated.

I was working with a bath-full of water, left over from the night before. I was able to put the adjusted plug unit (with extra rubber added to provide a better seal) into place and it did prevent water flowing away down the plug hole. With further experimentation, I did manage to get the syphon running. One discovery was that it is better to gently squeeze the rubber bell rather than compressing it flat; the former establishes a flow while the latter gives a powerful squirt that has to wait for the bell to expand again.

It also helped to string the hose outside the window along a gradual descent rather than straight down. This gives a proportionately greater volume of water flowing downhill under the influence of gravity, which is what is required to continue drawing water out of the bath. If we are going to keep using the device, I will have to see if I can rig up some hosing in a semi-permanent fixture along the side wall of the house to make the most of this.

Therefore, the kit does work after a fashion (albeit at a slow trickle). I think it would be helpful if it was accompanied by a leaflet on the science of syphoning as well as adjusters to make it fit a wider range of plug holes.

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Droughtplug

23 May 2008 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
wine Review0.3

Rating: 2 / 5

Droughtplug is a company that manufactures devices to help reuse grey water. Grey water is what you get after doing something like washing (without too much soap); you wouldn't want to drink it but garden plants will lap it up in a dry season. Jane and I use grey water to keep our more ornamental plants happy, saving rainwater and tap water for the edibles.

Earlier this year we bought a Droughtplug Recycling Kit which comes with hoses, connectors and a rubber bulb. It works on a syphoning principle. One end fits into the bath plug and a few pumps on the rubber bulb should be enough to get the water flowing so that the bath is then drained out without further effort.

Unfortunately, when we finally got round to testing it last night, the results were less than satisfactory. Firstly, the plug attachment was a little small for our bath. I checked the company's website to see if they offered a range but it looks like 42mm is all they offer and our plug is just a bit wider than that. We had some squares of rubber (meant as airbed patches) and were able to use these to compete the seal, but this wasn't a promising start.

We then found that, although water could be pumped, we couldn't get a syphoning flow established. I think it may be that the dustbin we were collecting water in outside was not much lower than the bath inside. The nearest we got to success was holding the end of the hose in the bathroom sink (the adaptor was too big for this plug hole). The extra height did get a syphoning action working but the result was a slow trickle. That would be fine if we could get it working from a bath-full of water and leave it running; it is not so good from a sink-full where you have to hold the hose in place.

I have a few more ideas to try but, at the moment, the product doesn't offer any labour saving over traipsing through the house with buckets. So far, despite being a promising idea, the result seem to be little more than a damp squib.

[hReview]

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I still have a lot of photos from last week to work through but I am feeling an urge to head out the less far-flung climes of my back garden to take yet more. Spring is fully sprung and summer feels like it is coming into land. With ample rain from April showers and now a spell of warmth and light, life is bursting out all over the place.

Our cytisus (broom) is in its full glory and, across the other side of the garden, forget-me-nots and borage bring an answer note of blue with their tiny, delicate flowers. The overall colour though is green - life and hope and (in some cases) food!

I hope I get round to capturing this phase although I am anticipating plenty of future excitement too, as different plants take their turn in the limelight.

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Having just got back from a few days in the countryside and checked with more experienced rustics, I suspect that the "cuckoo" I thought I heard last month was, in fact, a pigeon.

Weak as I may be at identifying bird calls, I think I was right about the spring - I need to get out in the garden and do some tending because my patch is bursting with green life!

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