Category: Habitats

Raised Bed

The blackbird is singing from the crab apple, the chiff-chaff more or less continuous from the blackthorn at the edge of the wood. There’s an occasional wood pigeon calling softly in the background and raucous sparrows erupting every now and then in the holly and hawthorn hedge.

It’s sunny with a bit of a breeze; an male orange tip is the only butterfly I spot as I draw.

Spanish bluebell behind the pond has now gone to seed. The lungwort has gone to seed and is wilting in the sun.

Borlotti Beans

borlotti bean plants

These borlotti beans are ready to go in growing around a couple of wigwams of bamboo canes. The broad beans, sown in the ground a month ago are now emerging.

borlotti bean seedling

It might be best to pot on our rather alien-looking courgette seedlings and grow them on in the greenhouse before planting them out in the raised bed.

courgette

Whelk Eggs

whelk eggs

Whelk eggs, all of them hatched, from the strandline on Druridge Bay, Northumberland last Monday.

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Categorized as Coast Tagged

Leeks

Our leeks are smaller than usual as we were late planting them out as we waited for our new raised beds to be constructed.

It’s rather late to be harvesting them but they’re fine. It’s encouraging to have such a good crop from the revamped veg beds.

They worked well in our leek, courgette and Boursin cheese tart.

Common Orange Lichen

lichen

Alongside a track through fields of seedling oilseed rape there’s a stretch of hedge where many of the branches are encrusted with this yellow foliose (leaflike) lichen, Xanthoria parietina, sometimes called common orange lichen. It will grow on twigs, branches and stonework, even on painted surfaces, especially where extra nutrients are available – for instance from bird droppings. In this case the extra nutrients might come from overspray from the field and to a smaller extent perhaps from the exhaust from the occasional passing vehicle on this quiet country lane.

Pigeons at Dawn

Latest trail cam shots from our back garden: pheasants, blackbird, a pair of robins and – what are you doing there?! – Butch (yes, he really is called Butch), next door’s Labrador but my favourite shot is the wood pigeon at dawn, looking hopefully up at the feeders.