Our first early Maris Bards, growing in a corner of the patio next to the water butt.
Patio Potatoes
Category: Garden
Over the Pond
I like to leave overgrown corners for wildlife but it’s time to cut back the nettles, hogweed, blackberry and sorrel behind the pond before they take over.
Nettle Rust Fungus
Orange stipples of rust fungus, Puccinia urticata, have caused a swelling on a stem of stinging nettle. This fungus has an alternate generation which grows on sedges, which doesn’t result in swellings. This nettle was growing next to a pendulous sedge, Carex pendula, behind the pond.
Harlequin Ladybird
When I started my Wild Yorkshire blog, harlequin ladybirds had yet to be recorded in Britain. The first records were in 2004 but now they’re our commonest ladybird.
Dozens of them spend the winter gathered snuggly in the narrow gap between our back bedroom window and its frame. There’s a great variety in their markings. A harlequin might have red spots on black or black spots on red. They can vary from having zero to as many as 21 spots.
Flea Beetle?
I’m going for flea beetle, possibly Altica lythri, as the identity of the small beetle I found on a sorrel leaf.
The UK Beetles website describes it as a common beetle of parks, gardens, wasteground, dunes and salt marsh. The food plants of its larvae include willowherbs, loosestrife, enchanter’s nightshade and evening primrose.
Brown Rat
The rat jawbone may be the remains of a fox kill but the foxes haven’t succeeded in eradicating every last brown rat in the area.
We had one of those sudden drenching showers this afternoon with hailstones falling amongst the heavy rain. As I walked across the back lawn later it was squelching underfoot. The run-off noticeably topped up the pond and it will have refilled the water butts attached to the fall pipes from our roof.
The local rat burrows were probably flooded too as we saw a large brown rat run across the patio, only to change its mind and run back again a minute later. It was the first we’ve seen for months, if not years.
Raised Beds
After 15 or 20 years the raised veg beds are beginning to come apart at the corners and rot through in places.
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.
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 Peer
Still a bit too early to put these in as we’re still having the occasional overnight frost.
Maris Bard
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.
First Day of Spring
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
