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A touch of the Van Gogh's with that picture mate, very nice.

Saturday 19 March 2011

due to changes in the us tax laws regarding pensions i have had to spend a lot of time in the last three weeks digging out paperwork from the last 30 years to get the numbers that the taxman wanted ... as a result i haven't been able to get out into the garden much this week ... in one way that was ok as the weather was not so good, cold with grey clouds and drizzle a lot of the time ... the only thing that stopped me from going completely out of my mind with total taxman-induced despair was an afternoon visit on wednesday to the tate britain museum with spidergawd to see the watercolours exhibition ... it was quite a treat btw and well worth a visit if you are in london

during the week my seed potatoes were delivered ... in the catalogue it states "1.5kg gives an average of 15 tubers per bag depending on size" ... well i mis-read that as 3kg gives 15 tubers so i worked out that given the areas i had earmarked for potatoes i needed 3 bags of 3kg each or around 45 tubers ... in fact i had actually ordered not 45 tubers but more like 90 tubers, twice what i thought ... but in fact many of them are small and i really have 130 tubers, many many more than i need ... so that means i now need much more ground than i had prepared already and all my plans are in disarray ... the upshot of being so dumb is that now i have to dig a very big area to be ready when they have finished chitting ie growing the little shoot that will become the main growing part of the plant by keeping them in a box or tray at 8-10 celsius (45-50 fahrenheit) ... when the shoot is an inch or so long the potatoes should be planted ... so it's dig dig dig for the next few weeks to be ready when the potatoes are ready

once all of the taxman's numbers that i could find were sent off on friday i was outside whatever the weather to do absolutely any job whatsoever as long as i could be outside instead of inside doing paperwork

the most urgent task at the moment is to replant the comfrey ... comfrey is a very versatile plant which has great benefit for the garden ... it can be put into the compost heap where it will add nitrogen and accelerate the rotting of the heap ... it can also be soaked in a bucket of water and used as a feed ... it can be laid in a potato trench to give a boast to the spuds as they grow ... and the bees love to feed off the flowers when they appear

my comfrey has been in one place too long and needs to be replanted as it has divided and multiplied all on its own ... the space it is in at the moment is now too densely packed so i have decided to dig it out and make a new bigger bed

the first step was to dig over the new extended area so there is somewhere to put the plants as i dig them out ... when all the plants are out of the existing bed then i will dig that over and replant them ... i am not quite sure how many individual plants i will find so i may need to find more space somewhere else, but that's ok ... the more comfrey the merrier

saturday was an amazingly nice day ... the sky was clear overnight so i awoke to find a layer of frost on the kitchen roof and a frosty white back lawn ... when the sun came up the frost soon disappeared and the day was glorious ... i did not need the neckwarmer or the hat and i was able to take my thermal top off for the first time this year

given the warmth of the sunlight i decided i should "make hay while the sun shines" and mow the remaining sections of lawn that i had not got to yet this year ... the sections already mown were remown with the mower set on level 'C' the lowest i can go because the ground is not quite level ... the other sections were done at level 'F' ... these will need to be raked as it was quite long, but the other sections look great ... i have now mown the entire back lawn for the first time ever before the end of march ... must be the effect of climate change

while i was mowing under the apple trees i noticed a lot of ladybirds ... i had seen one or two around earlier this month, but today there was quite a few sunning themselves on the bark of the tree and elsewhere ... i also saw something i have never seen before, namely two ladybirds having s*x !!! ... it really must be spring i thought ... in fact i have just checked and the vernal equinox is tomorrow sunday the 20th of march at 23:21 gmt ... so now it really is almost spring proper ... i have witnessed the growing power of spring coming for some weeks and *bang* now it's here for real

so the photo this week is of a ladybird ... down in the right-hand corner of the photo are the two ladybirds doing their little dance ... they are slightly out-of-focus to spare the blushes of the more sensitive folk (like me) ... to be honest i was shocked ... shocked i say ... but that's nature for you ... always a surprise to be found when you look closely at the world around you

here comes the sun ...

This is a bit off kilter from the thread but what does the taxman want 30 yrs of records for? I was always told that it only goes back 7 years? I dont know if I have papers back too far. Not that I am going to retire anytime soon but need to know if I need to save my papers.. thanks. Oh and I will start on my garden soon too...

Great thread "StonedSince'67", your photographs are wonderfully posed....some of the photographs of the flowers look quite surreal....too beautiful..
Hope you don't mind me asking, but is photography a hobbie of yours and do you require an expensive camera to achieve results like that??
Please keep the updates coming!!! This is a lovely, quiet place to come and chill on the forum
I swear i can hear birds chirpin' sometimes...

cattales1960 wrote:This is a bit off kilter from the thread but what does the taxman want 30 yrs of records for? I was always told that it only goes back 7 years? I dont know if I have papers back too far. Not that I am going to retire anytime soon but need to know if I need to save my papers.. thanks. Oh and I will start on my garden soon too...

re the tax stuff pm just posted ... but i'm looking forward to hearing about your garden plans for this year

artymac wrote:Great thread "StonedSince'67", your photographs are wonderfully posed....some of the photographs of the flowers look quite surreal....too beautiful.. Hope you don't mind me asking, but is photography a hobbie of yours and do you require an expensive camera to achieve results like that??
Please keep the updates coming!!! This is a lovely, quiet place to come and chill on the forum
I swear i can hear birds chirpin' sometimes...

i just have a simple digital point-and-shoot olympus u790sw ... its the one that is bounce-proof and waterproof to a degree

once i have the photo on my computer the framing is done in paint shop pro

i love images and the digital camera gives me things i can play with

and yes the birds are chirping a lot at the moment because its spring and they want to make nests ... it makes a lovely soundtrack to work by

Thanks for that "StonedSince'67". Keep up the good work

The Photographs - Winter 2011

Any suggestions to keep ther rascally critters out of my garden this year?

cattales1960 wrote:Any suggestions to keep ther rascally critters out of my garden this year?

LOL boner..

Friday 25 March 2011

here is my first bluebell in the garden ... there are lots of others in leaf only, but this is the first to flower

it brings to mind the concept of micro-climates, even within a single garden ... this particular plant is beneath a section of hedge and it must be that little bit more protected and warm and snuggly

thats so beautiful.

Sunday 3 April 2011

last sunday the day was warm with not much wind, so by the afternoon the dew had dried off the grass and it was mowable ... since there has been a lot of early growth this spring, it is important to take all the chances there are in the weather window and mow when possible ... i went over areas that had been recently been mown to bring them down in height and make a pathway all the way down the garden for easy access ... there was enough difference in the mower setting to leave lots of clippings to be raked up later

because the wind was so strong the rest of the week in the garden and clouds low and grey, i stayed inside and caught up with paperwork and sorting things

when the wind died down somewhat on friday i did some work outside on the new comfrey bed ... the original plan was to dig over the new end of the bed and then dig out the existing plants from the existing bed, then dig that over and replant the existing plants in the new bed twice the size of the old ... well that was the plan, but by the time i was ready to dig up the old plants they were already up, in leaf and doing well ... so i had missed my chance ... in the end i just weeded the old bed as well as the adjacent strawberry bed ... and finished off by raking level the new end of the bed and that now can be used for growing something else this year ... i'll move the comfrey over next winter when the plant is quiet again

this weekend i have done some more of the raking of the grass clippings, some more mowing, some fertilizing of vegetable beds with chicken manure pellets, and some weeding of the last veg bed to be dug for this season

when walking around this evening to find the week's photo i was struck by the innocence of some weeds that had popped up in a neglected strip to be cleaned up with the strimmer but currently neglected alongside the sunny garage wall ... i think the one in front with the white flowers is a white dead nettle and not stinging nettle (i haven't tested that theory yet by grabbing it in my hand) and the one in the back is the trusty old dandelion which i don't mind too much ... i have a soft spot for dandelions ... i remember blowing the seedheads when they were all white and seeds would go flying in the wind everywhere ... all over our lawn and everywhere

Wonderful "SS'67", it'll soon be warm enough for you to have lazy days sittin' in your little bit of 'eden', watchin' the bumble bees go by
Photo's are superb..inspires me to look a little longer and closer at the growin' world around me "cattales1960" is bang on the money, that photograph is so beautiful.....it looks like it was freshly painted by yourself ....but you can't improve on mother nature.

keep up the good work