Common Hill Nature Reserve - March Update

 We paid one of our regular visits to Common Hill Nature Reserve on 22nd March. See here and here for January and February reports. The trees are still waiting to leaf up but the sward is greening up nicely as this view from the corner near the main North meadow shows......and looking back towards...

New Arrivals - Frogspawn

 First frogspawn sighting of 2022 (23rd March) in our small garden pond......or in close-up...No sign of the parents!The appearance of frogspawn is an annual event. Unfortunately, we haven't kept past records of first sightings; anecdotally, this year seems to be later than usual.The arrival of...

Forest of Dean Sculpture Park - Taster Session

Returning from a short holiday near Chepstow, we stopped off at Tintern Abbey (raining) and Beechenhurst in the Forest of Dean (still raining). It stopped raining when we got home. Despite the rain, we enjoyed looking around Tintern Abbey (it rained last time we were there if I remember correctly) walking...

Tulip Time

 The first fully-fledged tulip flower in the garden came out on the 17th March, or maybe a day or so earlier, along with these tulipa turkestanica ...Here's hoping for a tulip display to match last year...

Wild about Daffodils

 Just over the border in Gloucestershire, in an area known as the Golden Triangle, is the best place to see wild daffodils in this part of the world. The villages of Kempley (19-20th March 2022) and Dymock (26-27th March 2022) host daffodil weekends where you can be guided or just wander freely...

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 "What is that?", I hear you ask (rhetorically). It appeared today - in the kitchen garden - during a sunny period; the sky was blue and cloudless. My 'dash' came to a full stop. I'll need my phone: a close-up photo of a comma will look great in a blog post...

First Garden Butterfly of 2022

 Following on from our first butterfly of 2022, I can now report on the first 2022 butterfly to appear in the garden on March 18th......as with 2021, it was a peacock butterfly. The butterfly spent time on the paved patio, warming itself in the early spring sunshine (16 ℃ and sunny at 1410...

First Butterfly of 2022

 We have just returned from a short holiday near Chepstow having passed through the Forest of Dean on our way there. One of our stops was at Cannop Ponds; two pre-1830 ponds built to supply water to a waterwheel at Parkend Ironworks. 14th March 2022 was a warm sunny day; in fact the warmest...

BIOCHAR(M OFFENSIVE)

I'm not sure when I got my first HOTBIN composter; I remember buying it from Tony Callaghan, inventor of the HOTBIN, before he sold the patents and company to DS Smith in January 2016. Tony then moved into biochar R&D/manufacturing with his new company SoilFixer.I bought my first lot of biochar...

View from the Rear Window - February 2022

 January 2022 was warm and February continued along the same lines. See here, here, here and here. Indeed it has been a warm winter overall and, as a consequence, this wallflower has never stopped flowering over the winter months (Dec - Feb inclusive) ...Of course, the main feature of the month...

Hot Composting #1

As an avid composter, I've been meaning to write a series of articles on how I compost kitchen and garden waste in a small urban garden. I'm shocked, shocked to find my one and only post on this topic was 18 months ago!From the start, I should emphasize that I will be mainly discussing 'Hot...