This gallery contains 44 photos.
Over a week without rain, so the blogging takes back seat to the logging. A long winter has taken its toll of our wood stocks. But a huge amount has happened in the last 2 weeks. Can anyone tell me … Continue reading
This gallery contains 28 photos.
Few tasks a gardener undertakes are likely to leave a mark in a century or more. Unless you happen to be a part of one of those all too rare gardening dynasties – think perhaps of the Banks family of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 46 photos.
As I write the text, all the snow which features in the images below has finally melted, and been washed away in further deluges, preluded by a brief power outage inducing storm on Saturday, with savage thunder and lightning which … Continue reading
This gallery contains 67 photos.
After taking the hair dryer to the ice encrusted satellite dish this morning, and getting connected again, I can write this post and feature an Ice vase. Until last weekend, I didn’t know that such structures existed. I’d been walking … Continue reading
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It’s now over 7 weeks since I set up ‘The Reactor’, an external compost bed designed to heat the ‘inner zone’ in our 14 X 8 foot cedar framed greenhouse. Thanks again to Fiona’s patience and wizardry with Excel, I’m … Continue reading
This gallery contains 34 photos.
Having been caught out by the severity of the last 2 winters, we were a bit better prepared this year, when the cold weather arrived early. The last week has been very cold, but the carrots we lifted at the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 60 photos.
To put everyone out of the suspense left after my last post, I’m going to show the starting point of the mystery image. Thanks to Carolyn for having a go at the identification. As you can see it’s an image … Continue reading
This gallery contains 32 photos.
Most of this post will be devoted to the detail of constructing ‘The Reactor’ – a compost bed designed to help to heat the greenhouse and keep it frost free over the winter. (Addendum: – There are a lot of … Continue reading
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I always loved my university courses in physiology and biochemistry. I didn’t find them that easy, but even all those years ago they confirmed that life wasn’t just amazing at the whole organism or species level, but even more so … Continue reading
This gallery contains 30 photos.
The last swallows have finally fled, the sun hasn’t showed for the last 3 days, the forecast shows more of the same and the nights have really drawn in, so I thought it might be appropriate to explore a topic … Continue reading
This gallery contains 30 photos.
Butt. Tip. Slype. Wale. Scallum. Back. Belly. Rod. Dark Dicks. Light Dicks. Bodkin. The unfamiliar lexicon of a new activity had to be assimilated quickly, along with practical skills, when Fiona and I headed off last weekend for an intensive … Continue reading
This gallery contains 28 photos.
“Gosh, I LOVE your fabulous hips“. “Would those be mine or Fiona’s, you’re referring to, Rosemary?” Not the conversation I was anticipating with our lagging and glamorous garden guest on Friday, as we enjoyed the sunshine on a post prandial … Continue reading
This gallery contains 33 photos.
I had great expectations for Monday morning. A new day, week, month (just) and season. And the fact that summer had ended with an appropriate blue moon on the penultimate day of August seemed a good omen. For those unfamiliar … Continue reading
This gallery contains 33 photos.
Lightning. Thunder. And fifty shades of grey. Followed by sunshine, and the strangely vibrant fifty shades of green that are the very stuff of August Welsh landscapes. Pretty much every year, but in this year more so as the weather … Continue reading
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The challenges of the rural blogger. As I sat down this morning to write this post, with heavy rain and strong winds forecast by 10.00 am, the screen went dead – the power was off. Ah well, into the greenhouse … Continue reading
This gallery contains 34 photos.
As I waited for the first home grown tomato and nectarine of the year, quite a lot more thoughts and ideas on tomatoes have gelled over the last couple of weeks. Before we’d headed off on holiday I’d installed reflective … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
We’re just back from our annual week’s holiday. Strangely for reasons I won’t bore you with, we can’t actually choose the week we’re away and so this year it landed in early July. Hardly the best timing for keen gardeners, … Continue reading
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Intrigued by the email mentioning the basket making event held last week at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW), we headed down and thoroughly enjoyed the display and demonstrations in the marquee by various basketry and rope work experts … Continue reading
This gallery contains 31 photos.
So, the nights are drawing in. Having just passed the longest day, we’ve also now notched up the wettest month in 2 years (even though we’ve over a week to go in June, and well, it’s JUNE, for goodness sake). … Continue reading
This gallery contains 49 photos.
The day began well with a pristine Green silver-lines moth, Pseudoips prasinana, resting up on the barn door. I’ve only ever seen this moth 3 or 4 times before, so when we had a phone call a couple of hours … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
It started with time. And a watch ad. And another full-page colour supplement watch ad, four pages further in, and both were featuring sponsored aeronautical display teams behind the shiny complex watch face. And both, no doubt, were hugely expensive … Continue reading
This gallery contains 30 photos.
“Dewi‘‘ the cuckoo should have stayed in Cameroon. After getting a mention in my last blog for making it back to the UK ahead of the 5 tagged birds from East Anglia on April 16th, Dewi wasn’t heard again until … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
A special day last week when on the 16th, whilst concentrating on some log splitting, I picked up a faint but distinctive sound from the far side of the valley. And paused. Was it a cuckoo? As is often the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 31 photos.
Every year the Canada geese fly into the valley sometime during February or March to breed. I guess that the 5 or 6 ponds in the immediate surroundings of the village are a sufficiently good draw. This last week I … Continue reading
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The last week has seen our first garden visitors of the year, happily visiting on days of glorious sunshine. But the most dramatic event was on a very sunny Sunday 10 days ago when we ate our lunch outside under … Continue reading
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How to begin this week? Moral capitalism? (Actually this post has been delayed by a bout of glyphosate induced illness, so the text might seem a bit out of date, but the issues with using this widely promoted herbicide will … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
It’s been one of those spells since the last blog, when the rain has held off, the days have lengthened, and the blog takes back seat to all the other tasks and events going on. One of the major outdoor jobs … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
Another blog, another torch-light discovery. A consequence I suppose of no TV to while away the dark evenings and the appearance of a new trial rabbit burrow amongst the snowdrops, primroses and hellebores. Trying to spot the culprit, I nipped out … Continue reading
This gallery contains 29 photos.
Last week was the time for Caroline Spelman M.P. and Environment Secretary to gather the movers and shakers for a drought summit. Why? Because many parts of Eastern, Southern and Central England are at risk of severe shortages of water … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
Ready for a ramble? Visual and verbal? A lot of thoughts have churned around the simple word “green” over the last few days. Kicked off by a couple of necessary long walks to work off the slight excesses of a … Continue reading
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I decided to slot in a quick post to record a trip out after cabin fever was descending following the rigours of the recent cold. A planned all day electricity outage for another cold, but as it turned out slightly … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
So the “Beast from the East” has swept in after all. The initial derision on BBC Radio 4 of newspaper reports of a Siberian blast approaching at least alerted us to the risks of proper wintry weather, which has hit … Continue reading
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My order for writing these posts seems to have developed into consistently being: ideas, research and taking photos, fix a title, write the text and finally upload the images. So, two days ago when I fixed on the title, it … Continue reading
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Just in time to save our sanity the sun returned to this small part of Wales and reminded us of the delights of winter. It really turns our days’ activities upside down after all the greyness. Frosts, mists return and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
A cacophony of climate confusion perplexes me as we head into a New Year. December 2010 saw the coldest UK December on record, whilst autumn and December 2011 were the warmest on record. In between, a record-breaking sunny, dry and … Continue reading
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In a typically unrestful lead up to Christmas, chance comments with friends led us to embark on retro fitting of extra insulation to part of our home. Also typically, it will take us at least 3 times as long as initially … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
So it’s official. Wales (and Northern Ireland) have had the warmest autumn ever recorded. This certainly confirms our impression. However the whole of the year has been very strange, weather wise. The PV inverter record for the year confirms the … Continue reading
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It’s taken 3 or 4 days to find a chance to start writing this post. This might seem strange since the days are now so short, but it’s been tidy up time after the efficient tree surgeon team from Lampeter … Continue reading
This gallery contains 30 photos.
A fortnight ago we set off for a rare holiday, and en route stopped off at PenPont house outside Brecon to collect a Welsh Blanket, which by some fluke I’d won in a questionnaire raffle a couple of weeks earlier, … Continue reading
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I managed to find a seed of an Erodium manescavii about to be released which I’ve included below, after mentioning the fantastic form of its seed in my last blog, and how the seed augurs its way into the ground … Continue reading
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The gap since the last post was caused by a very busy period of garden activity – more later, but a couple of night ago I walked out into our copse just as dusk was falling. The air was laden … Continue reading
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Writing these pieces occasionally when I get the chance means that there’s an inappropriate time lag for today’s 24 hour rolling news savvy readers. So, since I must record the fantastic start to October with the hottest days of the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 16 photos.
Four interesting observations and 2 wonderful new garden discoveries for us, and all in a week when the weather has been profoundly gloomy. The 2 new gardens are both privately owned and created by their current gardeners, and both are … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
Along with Crocosmia, Sedum and Japanese Anemones, it’s increasingly the Asters which I really look forward to seeing flower as we move into mid September. I’m a fairly new convert to their prolific autumnal show, and by chance we seem … Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
The day after my last post I was filming wasps demolishing a Red Melba apple when a vehicle drove into the yard. Things often seem to happen when Dave arrives (we saw the Sparrow hawk take a Pied Wagtail earlier … Continue reading
This gallery contains 18 photos.
We’ve now moved past the brief period when although midsummer has passed, the evenings seem to hang on to their long daylight hours. Over the last fortnight the day length seems to be shortening fast. I love this time of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
The title of this blog isn’t a solution to a strange local variant of the game of Cluedo, but developed from a bit of research into Hydrangeas, inspired by a couple of days away looking at other gardens in Herefordshire. … Continue reading
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Living and gardening here is very like my previous existence as a small animal veterinary surgeon. Hardly a week goes by even after all these years, when you don’t see something new. Or a significant variation on something seen previously. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
The weather year is shadowing the last 3 or 4. Glorious dry and sunny springs, followed by cloudy, wet and cool summers (85mm of rain in the last week, 35 mm in the last 24 hours). But really one can’t complain, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 23 photos.
It seems a long 10 days since we ventured up the M4 to visit the Hampton Court Flower show for the first time. We were fortunate to enjoy pleasant sunny weather with only a single shower, and were hugely impressed with … Continue reading