Clearing

Project clearing (aka actually finishing something!)

The title refers equally to the clearing of my airways and to the annual tidy-up in parts of the garden! But first we have the completed baffies:

Trying it on for size. I got the size I wanted by using 2.75mm needles

I added 4 rows of grey/red stripes all round after I'd completed the heel section as I wanted some extra height and also I felt it was rather boring without. I wish now that I'd added some stripes to the toe section as well but I'm not going to undo them now!

The i-cord bind-off gives a neat finish but the first time I did it was way too tight using 2.75mm needles and I couldn't get my foot in! So I undid it and used 3.5mm needles and worked much more loosely which was perfect.

I also made the heel a bit rounder as I didn't like the square effect in the original. To achieve that all I did was knit the 2 centre stitches together on each of 4 rows before the 3-needle bind-off of the heel.

Snug feet

Clearing pests

There are some little critters who share our home without being a nuisance but these pesky ladybirds are not welcome! They aren't the sweet little native ladybirds but are the horrid brutes, aka Harlequin ladybirds, who've been eating them (which I wrote about here).

I read somewhere that they keep coming back to the same places to hibernate because they emit a pheromone or something that attracts fellow ladybirds. Well, it certainly seems to be true as here they are again in exactly the same place even though I washed the whole area to try and clear away any lingering smell from last year.

I wish the spider could have eaten them so I didn't have to deal with them but she didn't and so I had to remove them. Interestingly, they gave off a really strong smell when I disturbed them.

All is not well in the barn either as a rat is making its presence felt. I store all the horse feed and bird seed/nuts etc in dustbins with lids but Kizzy's chaff (a feed-mix of chopped straw which I add to bulk up her feed) is not something they eat so it just stays in the sack.

Sometimes I'll find a hole nibbled in the sack where something has explored the sack but has abandoned it as unpalatable. A few days ago that's exactly what happened with just a few bits of chaff around the sack. This morning though the rat had been back again and literally dug about 1/3rd of the contents out of the sack just to annoy me, as rats don't eat chaff!

Look at the mess!

How they got into the sack

This of course meant a trip to the hardware store for some rat treats (ahem!) which I've placed inbetween the dustbins in the same place as the sack.

Clearing compost, supervised by Tilly, and finding some friends

On Sunday I was feeling much better as my breathflow was only 50 points lower than normal and so Tilly and I headed out into the garden to do some maintenance.

Tilly inspects the pile of shredded bark/wood which will be used as a mulch on flowerbeds next Spring

Just off to inspect the fungi mum…..

.…something's had a good feast

Watching ducks

She headed off for an adventure in the wild corner whilst I busied my self elsewhere. This is where we stacked spare slates, concrete blocks/roof tiles and other bits and bobs from when we renovated the house and is teaming with wildlife. I often see lizards and snakes sunning themselves on there and it is a safe haven for newts and invertebrates.

There are also lots of beautiful mosses growing on the terracotta roof tiles.

Adventure time!

This is where I was heading; the compost area. I know many of you will skip past this bit but please don't as it's such an important part of gardening. Recycling waste and turning it into something wonderful.

I forgot to take a photo before I started so at this stage I'd already cleared away the butternut squash plant which had been growing on the compost in the bay on the far right. The remaining squashes on there were really small and wouldn't have grown any more so I pulled up the plant and threw it into the bay on the far left.

The plant remaining is a yellow courgette and it still has some viable courgettes forming so I left it to grow a bit longer. It will keep going until the first frosts and I reckon we'll get another batch of courgette fritters out of it. Yum! 

The other things I found were some potatoes which had sprouted from some discarded bits that were in the heap. I put them in the sun to dry and firm up their skins.

Now, just look at this beautiful crumbly compost. This was the heap from last year of which I used 1/2 for planting and then left the rest to rot down further to produce this nutrient-rich loam. When I've removed the plant I'll shall store this compost in empty horse-feed sacks (if I manage to save any without rat holes in!) and use it, mixed with some garden soil, for potting next Spring  I should add that it doesn't smell.

Then it was time to turn the middle heap onto the end heap. It's jolly hard work but really worth it as it gets more air and water into it which speeds up the rotting process. You can see that the bits that were on the bottom of the middle heap are already quite well rotted and now they're on the top of the heap they'll keep the lower layers nice and warm to speed up the process.

Once the bay on the far right is empty I shall start piling things into there and so the whole process begins again. Until then, Mike will put grass cuttings into the middle section so that I can sprinkle them into the main heap in layers.

I also wanted to check on my Hoverfly Lagoon Project. This was something I got involved with via Sussex University and it was about seeing how many varieties of larvae you could attract using a bucket of water with a dry filling around it for them to pupate. 

This is now over and so I wanted to empty out the bucket and tidy up the material around it. I was very careful as  I searched through the wood chips and dry leaves as I knew there would be little friends hiding within and I wasn't wrong:

A beautiful Leopard Slug

Look how well camouflaged this little newt is

I put them in the undergrowth by the hedge so they would be safe

When we'd finished exploring and compost turning, Tilly and I headed down past the orchard to sit and watch the ducks on the pond whilst having a swing (well, only I sat on the swing, Tilly mooched around in the long grass!).

I noticed the bright orange seeds of the Iris and remembered why I don't grow it in a more prominent position - the unattractive spots of  'rust' on its leaves, which are not easily controlled, make it a plant for wilder parts of the garden.

The colour of Hawthorn berries intensifies as they ripen

Now the leaves have fallen from the orchard trees I notice the beautiful lichens growing on the branches

I have busy weekend ahead of me. On Saturday there's the ARUK Supporters' Day in London which I can only attend for half the day as I need to get home in decent time (the trains are very unreliable at weekends during the upgrade to London Bridge Station) as I shall be up bright and early the next day for my next marathon.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Following a post a while ago in which there was a photo of some rosehips, Glenys contacted me to tell me that when she was a Midwife during the Second World War, rosehip syrup was given to babies as it's such a good source of vitamin C which was in short supply due to rationing! Here's my version of the recipe which you asked for  Glenys xxx

Crochet, cats and compost

A crochet & cat combo

I've done quite a lot on the blanket over the last few days but each time I've tried to lay it out flat on the floor for a photo Tilly has come and helped. So I've abandoned all hope of a full photo for the moment and will just show a couple of views with cat accoutrement!

I wouldn't mind but she has her own special snuggle rug on the chair seat (you can just see it in the photos).

Although she's been with us for 10 months she has shown no inclination to venture outside as she's very timid and still scared of visitors so we decided to let her tell us when she was ready. Recently she's been watching what's going on through the window and seemed to be much more settled so for the last few weeks we've been encouraging her to be brave and come outside just for a short time each day.

I'll let the photos show her journey. She was really scared at first and it took days to get her to even come out onto the patio (with me sitting on the sun lounger with a packet of Dreamies cat treats as encouragement!) and she'd just sit there sniffing the air and looking around.

I'm not sure…….

Here I come…..

…but then again…..

I like it here!

What's that then?

This smells interesting - it's Curry plant so the leaves are aromatic but she spent ages rolling underneath it so there must have been an animal scent there too.

There were lots of nice smells around the stacked wood by the barn

Hmmm, I think mum needs to get some weeding done in this bed!

First close encounter with ducks. Thankfully they quickly established the ground rules between them.

Now she's very keen to come out and we have several outings each day of about 30 minutes at a time. She wanders off and has her own adventures whilst I potter in the garden; then she comes to get me when she's ready to go back inside. Bless her!

Compost

Yep, I'm about to extol the virtues of a good compost heap. No, don't yawn, it's an important part of gardening!

For years I've been hoarding pallets (well, a girl can have an obsession other than yarn can't she?) in the hope that someone, ahem Mike, would make me some compost bays. We've only been here 12 years, admittedly a lot of that time was spent renovating the house itself and the garden had to take a back seat, but finally my dream came true and here they are:

They may not look pretty and you probably wouldn't want them in an urban setting but my goodness they are useful! Until now I've had to just create piles behind the barn and because they weren't closed in at all they attracted the ducks and badgers who would rummage through them for worms and make a right old mess. I also have piles of leaves rotting down, a pile of wood chippings which I use as a decorative mulch on some of the flowerbeds in the wilder areas and a pile of horse muck.

You can see I've got 3 bays; one to be left to rot down, the current one that's being built up and one for piling stuff to be sorted into the current heap - oh the luxury!  It's really important to get a good balance of ingredients so things rot down well. Mike puts the grass clippings in the end bay so I can add them to the current heap in layers as grass clipping just form a slimy mush if left in a pile on their own or added all at once.

The first thing I had to do was transfer my existing heap into the first bay. I did this at the beginning of February which was the ideal time as it's got time to finish rotting down before I start using it to dig in when I plant new things. It's really important to turn your compost heap to mix things up and get air into it but it's jolly hard work.

The lower I got into the heap the more worms I found; just look at these lovely composting machines. They help the rotting process by digesting things, which breaks them down, and by moving through the heap thus aerating it too.

But you don't need such a large area to compost things. When we lived in our flat we were lucky enough to have a small garden and I had a wormery just like this. I still chuckle when I remember that the brandling worms came through the post in a polystyrene container! We put all our kitchen waste into the bin together with some plant material and the worms did all the hard work for us. Not only did they produce the most crumbly compost, they also gave us a liquid feed (that's what the tap's for) which I diluted and used for our plants. 

When we moved to our next home the bin was full and I refused to empty it out so the removal men transported it for us. They were both fascinated and horrified when I showed them what was inside!

What do I put on my heap? Lots of things, some you might not have thought about composting. Here are a few things:

- things high in nitrogen such as plant material from the garden for example plant leaves and stems but not perennial weeds or annual weeds with seeds developed. I also add fruit and vegetable peelings and scraps, coffee grounds and tea bags (although not all teabags are compostible). I always have a few comfrey plants in the garden as their leaves speed up the composting process so I add them throughout the summer.

- fibrous materials such as dead and dried plant material and plant stems; but not anything too woody as they take a long time to rot down. If you want to add tougher plant material then you can put it through a shredder to help it to break down faster.

- I used to add rabbit dropping when we kept rabbits and I always add horse manure, egg shells, cardboard (ripped up and wetted) and paper towels.

So why am I showing you a photo of our beautiful pampas grass, taken last summer? Because I left the plumes on all through winter and they looked wonderful but I had to chop them down so that the new growth could come through.

I know that the birds love this sort of material for their nests and so when I'd cut them off I put a pile of them by the compost heap so they can help themselves.