What's happening in your garden today?

[Anniekay]

Another dark and dank day in SE Blighty. About 3 degrees C. Just going to collect some wood for kindling from the veg plot. This is mostly last years' prunings from the fruit trees which have dried out and some old chopped up pallets. We still keep a real fire for the evenings (smokeless fuel) as a back up for the central heating. Will also take a bucket of kitchen scraps to put in compost bin. I have often thought that a small pony and trap would be useful for these kind of tasks. I have seen a few of these around - mostly for weddings - being very wary of the overtaking cars.

I can train ya a small pony!! That's what I did for a living: trained horses to harness. Maybe a good sized mini horse would do the trick and one I trained gets trained to traffic passing by from the start !!

 

[Sean Regan]

Just a general check around it's sunny and +10c.

My only concern is our one resident hedgehog and whether it survived the very low temperatures last week.
Its house is protects by the fence surounding the azaleas to the side of the main patio. Only small birds and hedgehogs can get through it.
The house is up on small feet on a paving slab and there's a block of polystyrene under the floor to provide some insulation. It had plenty of hay in the sleeping area.
There's an extra oversize roof on top which protects the entrance from rain.





There's hay that's blocking the inner doorway, which will prevent draughts. That's all we can do.
It would be unwise to check on it. We'll just have to wait until late March to know if it survived. There's always peanuts and suet pellets I leave for the birds and squirrels in a big plastic saucer a couple of yards away, so if it comes out fo a short time as they sometimes do in the winter, it'll find it.

 

[blenor 2]

Yes it's a balmy 9 degrees here today. Not at all bad. No rain but the grass is wet from dew and mist.

 

[Tetters]

Just a general check around it's sunny and +10c.

My only concern is our one resident hedgehog and whether it survived the very low temperatures last week.
Its house is protects by the fence surounding the azaleas to the side of the main patio. Only small birds and hedgehogs can get through it.
The house is up on small feet on a paving slab and there's a block of polystyrene under the floor to provide some insulation. It had plenty of hay in the sleeping area.
There's an extra oversize roof on top which protects the entrance from rain.


View attachment 2671


There's hay that's blocking the inner doorway, which will prevent draughts. That's all we can do.
It would be unwise to check on it. We'll just have to wait until late March to know if it survived. There's always peanuts and suet pellets I leave for the birds and squirrels in a big plastic saucer a couple of yards away, so if it comes out fo a short time as they sometimes do in the winter, it'll find it.


View attachment 2672

Your hog will be fine in there - stop worrying. Quite a lot of others will have far less protection, and will have to cope with just a pile of sticks and leaves - they don't all get as lucky as yours do.

 

[Sheal]

I have often thought that a small pony and trap would be useful for these kind of tasks.

I've said in the past that with the state that Britain's in now we could well find ourselves going back to those blenor 2.

 

[Sheal]

With the snow gone earlier in the week summer appeared today. The sun shone from late morning and the temperature was up to 15C/59F, unheard of in January.

Back to re-organising the shed in my new garden of five months. There's some fixed units and shelves to come out and of course some of the screws didn't want to budge. A lot of persuasion was necessary by my other half as my dodgy shoulder wasn't having any of it. Two now done and two to go.

 

[big rockpile]

Got bunch more cuttings. Mixed up some soil and started turning Compost .

big rockpile

 

[Anniekay]

I had visitors today who stayed for quite some time and I needed to go grocery shopping so I'll wait til tomorrow to plant my potatoes and onions.

I plan on planting 50 red onions, 25 in each raised bed, with my brassicas and 4 potatoes, two Red norland and 2 Yukon gold, with my snow peas. We'll see how that goes !!

 

[big rockpile]

Turning Compost again.

Cut some Begonias way back got pretty New Growth.

Seen my first Dandelion Blooming. My wife said well Winter is over . Yea Right! Think it is just a tease.

big rockpile

 

[Anniekay]

Got my potatoes and onions planted, weeded, and pulled out two broccoli plants that never gave me a decent broccoli, just thin little flower heads that immediately bolted. Not worth bothering with.