Post Thunderstorm Potter

Really cool this morning and a bit of a breeze so decided not to oil the two benches.  Both are in serious need of some tlc and have been much neglected but its a small job that can wait for another day.  Instead decided to clean out the mini greenhouse.  Sowed some hosta seed and Michaelmass Daisies (for autumn colour and late bee food next year).  The garden is looking lovely and I think that keeping the to-do list small makes my largish space that more manageable and enjoyable.

Yup - Barleywood Blue.  Very
Alan Titchmarsh 1990s! 

So I had time for the silliest project!  Have a small birdtable that was looking the worst for wear so got a small test-pot of woodstain from Homebase to see how far it would go.  £1.50 did this! Looks pretty full on in close up by actually draws the eye nicely here:
 

Last job was sorting out the bird feeders.  Attracting as much wildlife as possible to the garden has been a central aim - one of the excuses for having lots of flowers!  I looked askance at the prices of some birdfeeders and was trawling the internet last week when I came across this kit for a £2.99.Basically it converts any plastic pop bottle into a fully functional bird feeder.  It arrived a few days ago, popped two holes in a plastic bottle and inserted the plastic hanger, poured in the seed and screwed it into the feeder-base.  You can see how it works here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bshxyaHX9k4 , and the final result...

TaDah....!

Am proper chuffed with this and will be getting some more. If you can't find a stockist, I got mine off eBay.  If you just search Bottle Top Feeder Kit, you'll find one. Must remember to start collecting as much seed as possible to add to much diminished stock.  Have a finch flocker in the back garden - have to fill it up too regularly!

Next job will be the oiling of the benches.  Using unboiled linseed oil.  Will see if it does the trick!

Tales from the Wormery.

I bought (not made) my wormery from a firm called Wiggly Wigglers.  As the name suggests they specialise in wormeries (mine is their Worm Cafe) can make your own but worried I'd get it wrong.  The cafe was great in that it has a number boxes you can layer it up with + a tray at the bottom for the compost liquid that can be diluted and used for plant food.

.

The Worm Cafe can have a total of four
 layersin nested boxes.

and they stock everything you need to either start up or maintain.  Of course you

Well to cut a long story short it arrived, it worked, it was great and then it filled with rats.

I'd run another compost bin on bare ground about 10 yards away and early last year detected the tell tale signs of an infestation. Kitchen compost disappeared really quickly, lots of droppings and then sight of a tail wagging fiercely at the bottom of a run its owner had made as it scurried from the feastly top on my arrival.  I wasn't too bothered, to be honest.  I just stamped a little harder on the ground as I approached it so I wouldn't actually get to see one, but that's all I did.  It became more problematic in the (late) spring when I wanted to empty the content to use it.  I pondered what to do and how to approach what was obviously going to be a nest, preparing myself for an explosive migration when I knocked the bin over.  Having worked myself up to it for a few weeks, however, the issue went away on the arrival of my daughter from uni who innocently asked if there was anything she could help me with.  Job done.

As it happened the rats had already gorn.  I'd stopped feeding the bin knowing I was going to empty it so they'd left for pastures new.  The pasture they chose was the wormery.  I found this out on an attempt to dispose of some teabags.  I took off Gollum, the stone gargoyle that weighed the top down, and there

The Worm Cafe, featuring
Gollum the Gargoyle

beneath were THREE FAT REALLY REALLY REALLY FAT rats.  Lid down, scream, run - the whole thing.  Couldn't work out how they'd got there.  Gollum was certainly ugly enough to discourage even the most determined rat, but his main feature was his weight!  We thought they must have chewed their way in from underneath.

I usually manage to fill two of these
trugs from one emptying of the
wormery.

Well a few days ago it was time to empty it.  Worm compost is gold. Black gold, Texas Tea (Ok this is lifted straight from the old American sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.  If you aren't familiar here's the theme tune).  I use it to bed in or mulch plants I can't afford to leave without a bit of TLC.  I lifted Gollum away and with the help of a 300ft pole (spot the hyperbole)  nudged the top off.  Nothing there.  Oh the drama!

So... emptied the compost as usual, drained off the liquid food

Liquid compost on
bottom tray. All free!

 and stored nicely in old plastic milk cartons.  This is really great stuff.  Smells like nothing alive on earth but great for liquid feeding both veg and flowers. Not a sign of any chewed plastic of any kind!  All we can surmise is that the rats nudged the top off a few inches with Gollum still in residence and did the deed under him whilst still on duty.

All is restored now.  I may need to dig up some more worms but other than that sorted for the next cycle.

Liquid feed ready for
action.

So late this year!

I'm sure I'm not the only one to be deterred from getting to grips with the garden - we're all behind!  Hard to do much with frozen soil and soul-curling easterlies.

However, this Sunday glimpsed a break in the cold!  Lovely day so got on with some much needed tidying up.

So much to do but keeping it focused and simple helps to control what would otherwise be an overwhelming amount of space.  This weekend was about secateurs.  Simply walking the garden, cutting out last year's stems, thinning out ramblers and pruning fruit bushes was a pleasant hour's work.  Quick finish with the yardbrush made paths look clearer and the garden immediately fresher.

Managing time is a theme running throughout all these posts.  To be both tasty - and hasty - this garden demands the strict organisation of  time.  The way I do it is to make sure that tasks are planned in advance, focusing on a specific area of the garden. 

Next weekend will see me tackling two casualties of the winter:  some wooden troughs rotted completely through require dismantling, geranium cuttings need to be taken from larger specimens overwintered on the kitchen sill and seeds started.  These latter will all be initially set inside lest we become further plagued by the weirding our global weather is currently undergoing.