Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
We should be self-sufficient in pesto this year because our basil seedlings have got off to a good start. We discovered that the ones we’d potted on did better on the kitchen windowsill than in the greenhouse, probably because we had some cool nights.
I think that my previous small plastic weed knife might have ended up in a bucket destined for the compost heap, so I had the perfect excuse for upgrading to a Darlac Bamboo Weed Knife, which is a big improvement. I was drawing these while listening to today’s Adobe podcast and perhaps because of the distraction, I made a mistake with the proportion of the blade (it’s not quite that long).
The bent screwdriver has in the past been used for weeding crevices between paving and it’s also opened many cans of paint. I often took it to Pageant Players to open cans of emulsion that hadn’t been opened since the previous year’s production. This was my dad’s best ratchet screwdriver and I remember my horror when I bent it as he was liable to become explosively angry when tools went astray!
My favourite pair of secateurs were an unmissable bargain ten or so years ago but they cut better the others that we use. A satisfyingly crisp ‘snip’ as you cut through anything up to about half an inch thick.
Drawing this, I realised that my current favourite pen is the Lamy Vista with the Extra Fine nib, used in the lower two drawings. It’s a bit freer flowing than the TWSBI Ecot, which might be the one I’d favour if I was ever aiming for precision and detail.
I’m pleased to regularly come across earthworms as I dig the veg beds. This is a juvenile, as it hasn’t developed a clitellum: the swollen band around its body, which makes it difficult to identify: in Britain we have 27 species of earthworm.
These wrinkled Bards with their spiky topknots remind me of a line from a Simon & Garfunkel song:
“Talking to a raisin that occasionally plays L.A.,
Casually glancing at his toupee.”
I’ve just finished reading Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn to Life, so I was thinking of his advice, when drawing figures to draw gestures rather than anatomy, so in this case I went for the laid-back poses of this little group, rather than the botanical detail.
Last year we nearly forgot what kind of potato we’d planted, so for the two varieties that we’ve gone for this year, I’ve cut labels from margarine cartons and written the nameS with a Sharpie. That should last for the two or three months until the potatoes are ready for harvest.
Instead of weeding out these foxglove seedlings, I’m saving them for my meadow area.
Chicory tends to take over from most of the wild flowers that I try to introduce but foxgloves stand a fighting chance as they colonise open woodland and burnt areas and they prefer dry or moist acid soils. I’m not going to be able to establish the kind of wild flower meadow that you’d find on chalk downland but I should have more success in creating a woodland edge habitat.
I found this adult common shrew on one of the veg beds and my number one suspect for dispatching it has to be Basil a neighbour’s Himalayan Persian cat who currently seems to have exclusive hunting rights for our back garden. Shrews are distasteful so my guess is that Basil caught this one amongst the tussocks of grass in the meadow at the edge of the wood and abandoned it on his regular route back home.
Basil was making a half-hearted attempt to pounce on a hen pheasant yesterday, so a shrew wouldn’t present any challenges for him.
Shrews must 90% of their body weight in a day, but there are plenty of woodlice, spiders, beetles, slugs and worms in the meadow and around the edges of our back garden.
We’ve never had a better crop of potatoes than last year when we grew Maris Peer, a second early. They were versatile, heavy cropping and we didn’t have any waste because of blemishes or damage. We like their taste and texture; they never ‘boiled in the water’ and turned slushy. However, we were late buying them and our local garden centre had only these last few left, so we’ve also gone for some Maris Bard extra earlies.
This drawing took just over an hour and it’s unusual for me as it hasn’t been drawn on my iPad. It’s drawn with a dip pen with a John Heath’s Telephone Nib 0278 F and De Atramentis Black Document Ink in a Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook. I enjoyed the feel of pen on paper again, so I’ll be doing a few more dip pen drawings.
Because of the wet autumn and winter, I’ve only just cut the long shoots off our Golden Hornet crab apple. Recycling some twine from a wigwam that I’d made for climbing plants last year, I’ve tied them into bundles to create a habitat which I’m hoping might attract solitary bees, beetles or other invertebrates.
I would have done the same if I’d got around to cutting back the long shoots on the rowan in the front garden too but a pair of blue tits are showing a lot of interest in the nestbox there, so I’ll leave that job until the autumn.
We cut the Joan Jay autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to 18 inches last autumn and now in spring they can be cut right down to two or three inches, as they flower on new growth. I’ve cut them in half to produce a couple of bundles, one of which I’ve inserted into a cavity between the rocks at the edge of the raised bed.
Last year was our best ever for the two small cordon apples by the patio but this year out of the few small apples that grew, all were blemished by insects or pecked by birds.
We grow a double cordon of Howgate Wonder and a single stem of Golden Spire. They’re in a tiny bed close to the wall of next door’s conservatory so in September I added a thick mulch of garden compost to refresh the soil. I also planted dozens of crocus bulbs.
This female garden spider, Araneus diadematus, has spun her orb web in the greenhouse. The pattern on its abdomen gives it the alternative names of cross spider or diadem spider.