Category: Garden

Raised Beds

raised beds

After 15 or 20 years the raised veg beds are beginning to come apart at the corners and rot through in places.

raised beds as they are now

I like the L-shaped beds as they are but wheeling a barrow down the garden is a bit of an obstacle courses, especially steering past the greenhouse.

plan for new layout of raised beds

So our plan is to widen the central path – and perhaps the side paths to give better access to the beds. It’s a big job but we’re getting Earnshaw’s the local timber and fencing centre in to give us a quote for the doing the work.

Planting veg and covering it with netting or cloches to keep the pigeons off should then be a whole lot easier.

And then I can turn my attention to the rampant chicory that has, as always, taken over my patch of what should be a wild flower meadow.

Maris Bard

potato sketches

My right thumb is doing well – I’d sprained it with a marathon session of snipping back the ivy and hawthorn – but I’m still keen to practice drawing with my non-dominant left hand. These chitted Maris Bard first early seed potatoes are ideal subjects for my wobbly pen.

drawing a potato

First Day of Spring

cumulus

It rained for much of today but by 4 o’clock the towering cumulus clouds had passed over and it was bright enough to encourage me to put on my 1970s black wellies and cross a soggy, mossy lawn to trim back the ivy by the shed.

The birds are already singing and showing interest in denser sections of the hawthorn hedge. Luckily I pruned the rowan, crab apple and the holly hedge at the end of the garden a month ago.

frogspawn

Barbara spotted some frog activity last week and today I noticed two clumps of spawn in the usual, sunniest, corner of the pond.

Tough Work

‘Did you manage to get any gardening done after drawing this and photographing the robin?’, a friend on Instagram asks me. Well yes, Jacqui, you’re going to be amazed at the transformation!

These Olympus Tough macro shots, taken while weeding the potato bed, include a holly blue butterfly.

Tool Belt

tool belt

I’ve been working my way over the veg beds weeding, mainly with a small hand fork but occasionally I need a pair of secateurs so I’ve gone for my garden tool belt. Also in there, my Olympus Tough camera. I had been keeping it in the leg pocket of my works trousers but if the resident robin hops down in front of me, or a holly blue butterfly lands on the nearby marjoram, it takes too long to unzip the pocket and retrieve the camera.

Garden Snail

garden snail

As I weeded the path behind the raised bed, one of the garden snail shells I spotted this morning was smashed, probably by a thrush; another was occupied, so I popped it into a crevice and a third was empty, a good subject to try out some Procreate illustration techniques on as I get back into my course.

The Greenhouse Gang

toad

I’m afraid it’s that time of year again when I have to briefly disturb our resident toad in the greenhouse. He or she isn’t too pleased about it but I make sure there’s a quiet corner under a plant tray available as I continue moving pots and pulling up spurge, chickweed and dandelion.

spider

This spider with a plump abdomen is the most common beneath trays and plant pots. This is the male, the one with the ‘boxing glove’ pedipalps.

Rose Sawfly

rose sawfly
Body length, about 1 cm.

Resting on the wheelie bin by the hedge what looks like the Large Rose Sawfly, Arge pagana. The females have ‘saws’ to cut into plants when laying eggs. There’s a self-seeded rose growing up in the beech hedge right next to the bins.

Drawn in Procreate, using my homemade ‘worn nib’ brush for the line work.

Grasshopper

grasshopper

The end of the garden has become a bit of a grassroot jungle and as I pulled bindweed out from around the compost heap I disturbed this small grasshopper.

grasshopper

Perhaps a stripe-winged grasshopper or common green?

We don’t often spot grasshoppers in the garden. This might be our first record.