- Categories:
- about
- books
- christian
- computers
- food
- gardening
- local
- misc
- music
- photography
- spain
- twittering
Toad in the Hole
This toad had a close escape yesterday. I was turning over some ground with a fork (prior to moving several rather stunted currant bushes away from the wall that was inhibiting their growth when I spotted him. I presume he must have burrowed down into the earth somehow to overwinter!
No harm was done though and, after a short photo session, I found him another corner of the garden that is due to be less disturbed (sheltered behind one of our mature shrubs).
Rhubarb
Last October, I planted some rhubarb. It had been purchased earlier (possibly a year or more earlier) and it was perhaps a touch optimistic expecting it to amount to anything. Despite the budding signs of spring in the garden it showed no sign of life, so we bought four fresh roots from the local branch of Notcutts yesterday and got them straight in the garden.
The old roots, which I dug out at the same time, were definitely dead. They have graduated to providing more fodder for the compost heap. That experience made the parable that came in this morning's gospel reading (Luke 13:6-9) particularly striking (being based on the picture of giving a plant a little longer but only so much to bear fruit)!
Alliums (Late)
The Allium bulbs, which Jane and I got as a gift for signing up for life membership of the RHS last autumn should have gone in the ground round about November. However, I was not sure where to put them and then the depths of winter arrived and suddenly we were at the start of spring!
Since they were showing some signs of life, I decided to plant them out anyway, under the currant bushes I moved around on Saturday. Time will tell if this is a good or bad companion relationship and whether either plant will manage to produce anything this year but at least they are in the ground; I am hoping their vitality overcomes my errors!
By the way, I should mention Friday's Oxford Grow Zones event again. That is coming up fast and there is still space to squeeze a few more people in.
- Technorati Tags:
- gardening
- allium
- house244
- growzones
- earthabbey
Oxford Grow Zones
Grow Zones are an idea developed by the Earth Abbey group. The concept is that a group of people take some time to work on each other's gardens, giving them a push on tasks like creating new raised beds or building a composting area and making them into much more productive areas.
They began in Bristol, where EarthAbbey are based but are now looking to sow new zones around the UK. To explore that, we are welcoming Chris Sunderland to Oxford on 5 March, which you can read about (and sign up for) on the House244 blog. Elsewhere, there is also an expanded introduction to the topic, written by Chris Sunderland, called Grow Zones — reconnecting with the land.
If you are interested and in Oxford, then you would be very welcome to come and join our discussion on 5 March; if you are further afield but think it might work in your area, EarthAbbey would love to hear from you.
- Technorati Tags:
- gardening
- house244
- growzones
- earthabbey
Robin Whitebreast
Working out in the garden recently, I have seen an odd-looking bird. It looks like a robin but is pale, almost desaturated of colour. It turns out it isn't an old robin or a ghost robin but one with a condition known as leucism. You can see a picture in an article from The Times. Hopefully, at some point, I'll get a few photos of my own.
Snow Planning
As you can see from the picture above, I managed to implement my plan of working on my garden design using the snow on Saturday morning. There was just about enough left over to mark out three long beds. The curve in the front two is deliberate as it leaves a space between that and the third bed to put some fruit bushes and also use as a working area. Each of those beds will have the soil sloped up from front to back to make better use of the available sun while the third will be for plants being trained to grow up canes which we will support against the wall (eg. courgettes). The back of each bed will be marked out with empty bottles — if you look closely, you will see that I have used the ones collected so far to mark out the rough shape for when the snow melted.
Garden Planning
As I mentioned yesterday, I was not very happy to see more snow coming down. It was quite disruptive — for example, round Oxford, the bus companies reduced or suspended services for part of the day. However, by the afternoon the thaw had returned and, this morning, the snow is still on the retreat.
I will be glad to see the back of it but, inconsistently, I don't want it to disappear too quickly. If there is enough around on Saturday morning, I have an idea about using it to experiment with some ideas about changing the layout of the vegetable beds in the garden. I have done some sketches but snow will be an excellent material in which to sketch out my ideas at life size, adjusting as required.
If it works out, that could put a whole new perspective on my view of snow; not just a pretty but inconvenient white blanket but a free provision of design prototyping material!
