Category: Garden

Digging for Victory: Season 2 Episode 1

It’s the spring equinox and the first radishes and carrots are in the ground. The netting is an attempt to keep the birds and squirrels away, and to stop the local cats using it as a toilet (we’re looking at you, ginger bugger).
Admin1 is rereading The Burning Man by Christopher Fowler and Admin2 is reading Never Forget by Michel Bussi, a compulsive but implausible “girl” book, about a boy.

Willow Pattern

Spring is coming, but where are the frogs?
It’s world book day!
Admin1 is reading The Night Hawks by Elly Griffith. Admin2, inspired by the Kate Atkinson book, is rereading The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas, which does indeed feature academics with unfinished books and dissertations, and confusions over parentage, but has a lot of old people and botanical disquisitions so reads somewhat like a Margaret Drabble book. Not going to reread a Drabble book next, though, because we have NEW BOOKS!

An Unexpected Visitor

This morning Admin1 was disturbed by a cacophony of rawk-rawk sounds from a squadron of magpies in the garden. And looking out of the window he saw why…

…a sparrowhawk, feasting on one of their brethren (presumably). There wasn’t much left to identify the victim apart from feathers.
Admin1 is reading Perfect Death by Helen Fields, which was soapily melodramatic and only borderline readable. Admin2 is reading The Ottoman Secret by Raymond Khoury.

Plant of the Day: Arum maculatum


Also known as snakeshead, adder’s root, arum, wild arum, arum lily, lords-and-ladies, devils and angels, cows and bulls, cuckoo-pint, soldiers diddies, priest’s pintle, Adam and Eve, bobbins, naked girls, naked boys, starch-root, wake robin, friar’s cowl, sonsie-give-us-your-hand, jack in the pulpit and cheese and toast.
Admin1 is rereading One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre and Admin2 is reading Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler (thx Christopher).

Flower of the Day: Magnolia


A second flowering for our purple magnolia which came to us as a tiny wilted seedling with a reduced sticker and then spent several years neglected in a pot.
August was our rainiest ever August with the hottest ever August day, coldest ever August night and our sunniest ever August day but the month overall was our second cloudiest ever August, overtaking 2012 by just 9 watts, and the temperature averaged out as average.
Admin1 is reading Ghostwritten by David Mitchell and Admin2 is reading Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge; a write to remember.
We scored a mere 13 on the GWQ.

Digging for Victory: Week 3


Not much new in our raised beds but green shoots in the pots which we have taken indoors after we discovered that birds had eaten all the seeds we had planted in pots outdoors. Hello broccoli. cabbages and peas!
We scored 20 out of thirty in the bumper Easter quiz.