Making our Meadow Blog

Start of 2008

OK, so I have been really rubbish for the last siz months or so - I have not posted anything for a number of crap reasons. Sorry but there you go shit happens. Anyway the second half of 2007 passed rather uneventfully in the garden, with few changes to the design and layout of the rest of the garden except that is for building a recycled plastic deck with a recycled oak post gazebo, a recycled plastic dual compost bin and a new fence (not recycled plastic unfortunately) which we have very gratefully received from donations from our lovely friends and family as a wedding gift. I don't know how we will pay for the other one - I guess we will have to get busy making a family! A few purchases for the garden have included a fig to be trained along the fence (Grise de St Jean, from Read's Nursery), a red grape to grow over the gazebo (Boskoop, ditto) and a hazel (Di Giffoni, from Chris Bowers & Sons). Apart from these little projects we have both been very busy at work so we have not had the time to spend in the garden we would like. As we look forward to 2008 some of the main projects we would like to carry out include:

• Laying a new lawn with recycled brick paths - I have already bought the grass seed for this so I really have to do it!
• Building another willow screen / barrier for...uhm...safety reasons.
• Putting up a new fence on the other side of the garden to act as a cat deterrant.
• Most importantly, working with my good friend Steen, making a PondCam to show the antics of the various denizens in our pond. We are keen to power this entirely using renewable energy and Steen already has a camera so this should prove to be an interesting project. The main problem (apart from all the technical issues, which I am leaving to Steen...) will be the continuing swamping by blanket weed and Duckweed in the pond. I will have to keep this under control but doing so without affecting any other pond life will be a challenge.

2008 has started well with the usual vast selection of tomato seeds already sown, a new almond, blackberry and tayberry planted and have made a monstrous recycled plastic base to lift the 700l water butt we have to a height that means we can actually get a watering can underneath the tap. And with all the rain we have had in the last few weeks, it is filling up fast. But you can guarantee there will be a hosepipe ban this year... as there should be I guess.

The more observant among you will have noticed that I have deviated from my initial plan to document the development of the meadow to include the whole garden.This has just happened as a consequence of my inherent desire expand upon, digress and generally waffle. So to all those dedicated die hard meadow watchers out there (it's ok i know nobody reads this, i'm just talking to myself really like all the other nerds on the net). So I'm just going to get on with it and post stuff. It's not like it's very important really is it?

June 2007

Well, Nicole and I have just got back from our honeymoon in the Garfagnana region of Tuscany (I am in the business of boring you with tedious details about my garden not my personal life so I won't go about the alpine meadows filled with orchids, vast swathes of chestnut forest or eagles, red backed shrikes and wrynecks all over the place), and of course prior to that was the minor detail of getting married in the Netherlands (ditto) which helps to explain why i have been so remiss in keeping up to date with current posts regarding the meadow and pond.

So, what has happened while my mind has been otherwise occupied:

well, the orchids both went their merry way to monocot heaven and were devoured / damped off /were generally annihilated. EXCEPT for the Marsh Helleborine which i stuck in a pot and forgot about and has even flowered (in a rather perfunctory way). Everything else seems to be doing excellently.

Spring in overdrive

The seasons have rolled on and the meadow is looking good. We only had a few mini-cowslips, the smallest I have seen since I lived near the North Downs in Kent. The orchid experiment seems to be destined for repeated failure, both the Bee Orchid and the Green Winged Orchid are looking decidedly sickly, half eaten and have not shown any signs of flowering. Interestingly the third orchid I set out to try, the Marsh Helleborine, which was faring poorly so was rescued, now seems to be doing better in a pot. If the others do not improve I will dig them up and rehouse them, and forget about gowing them in the meadow. The overall effect of the meadow is one of exuberant full on growth and many of the planst are now wel established. I really need to uploadsome pictures, when I get time.

The pond is doing well it is full of life. A little too full in fact, we had to pull out a mountain of algae in March as it was getting so full. I had wanted to just compost it but Nicole, being such a lovely woman, wanted to save everything, so we spent a whole day picking through it pulling out hundreds of snails, dozens of dragonfly and damselfly larvae, beetles, water boatmen as well as vast quantities of plankton as well as a couple of smooth newts. The tadpoles are thriving and we have had a load of toadspawn as well. Sadly a week after we had removed the blanket weed it was back. After clearing it out again we popped some barley straw squares in. To help aerate the water we have also installed a small solar powered pump. To be honest this does very little and I think that short of having a huge rig costing a fortune it will not have much effect. The weed is gradually encroaching (even with two of the squares).

After the hottest April on record the water level in the pond has shrunk by about 10cm and it is already looking very sorry for itself. The hemp sacking we placed around the edge to protect the plastic is already breaking down (perhaps feeding the blanket weed...) so the liner is at risk from UV degradation and the edge looks rubbish. But the pond is still so full of life, with up to 10 frogs and 4 newts in it at any one time.

Plans to get the PondCam up and running are still afoot, Steen, my technical advisor has got most of it sorted out with only a small detail regarding the wireless connection now holding things up.... watch this space for more details.