Category Archives: soil management

Picking up the pieces

Posted on November 20, 2020 by

Two tomato plants, in the small bed by the back door, decided to make their move sometime during the autumn. They’d been spindly little things all summer, then suddenly they were bushes, flowered and started to grow fruit in late … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management, Wildlife | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

It wasn’t me!

Posted on November 10, 2020 by

Well, the start of another working week commences but first I took a short trip round the garden and now I have a curious event to report. The phone camera doesn’t do the best job of close-ups, so what you … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management, Wildlife | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Better beans?

Posted on November 1, 2020 by

2020 has been a dismal year for beans – at least for me. The molluscs made a meal of the broad beans over winter and it continued from there. Every time I saw a broad bean shoot, it was too … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Blame it on the Red Campion

Posted on October 19, 2020 by

Silene dioica, more commonly known as Red Campion, has been gradually taking over the front garden since I threw a packet of seeds down, not expected them to come to much. Seeds sown directly into my soil rarely do for … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, Good for the environment, soil management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A scream in the garden

Posted on October 11, 2020 by

Friday was an unexpectedly sunny day but cool enough for some heavy-duty work in the back garden. In view of the recent rat activity in the dakek compost bin I was keen to eliminate the issue. Having made the holes … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management, Wildlife | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Steam

Posted on October 8, 2020 by

What makes you happy? Regular readers may be familiar with one of my passions: making compost, especially when the process is going right. So, I was very pleased the other day when I went to turn the contents of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Making holes

Posted on October 5, 2020 by

Since putting newspaper, manure and cardboard down to create better soil near the back door, I’ve been mulling over how to proceed. First of all, I wondered how easy it would be to plant through the cardboard layer, at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

A rowan tree

Posted on October 3, 2020 by

Until Thursday, I had prevaricated over whether to keep the self-seeded rowan growing by the bay tree. Then the decision was made to chop it down. It was too close the house and seeing how big some of the rowans … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, Gardening, soil management | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Building the bed by the back door

Posted on September 15, 2020 by

There wasn’t a lot of soil left from excavating the hole for my pond in the winter of 2018, once I’d spread it round the garden. Thus, the bed by the back door had ended up with but a thin … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardening, soil management | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

An altogether better place

Posted on August 9, 2020 by

You Were Gone by Tim Weaver is perhaps one of the most intriguing books I have read this year. It was lent to me by a distant neighbour in Altofts, near Wakefield. Having now finished this book and duly returned … Continue reading →

Posted in Days out, soil management | Tagged , , | 6 Comments