by Derek Smith
On Sunday 28 January, we did the Big Garden Birdwatch. For one hour, over this weekend, the public is asked to spend an hour watching and recording the birds in their garden or local green space, and then send their results to the RSPB. We chose the hour between 11am and 12 noon on the Sunday morning. With 1 in …
2024 came in with rainy days that soon ceased, and the temperature dropped. The cold days have kept the garden quiet, but the low temperature is no bad thing. Frost kills bugs, such as greenfly, who would otherwise survive the winter and reproduce in greater numbers in the spring. Daffodils and our apple trees need a period of cold weather. …
On Christmas Eve we had our last event of the year. A children’s event with a search game round the garden and art too, with Santa Claus in the book shed. Grown ups were invited too, for hot chocolate or tea, mince pies and biscuits, and a natter. It was also the culmination of Forest Gate Festive Countdown. Local residents …
It’s not quite the end of the year, but all the signs are there. Short days, bare trees, and few birds. Today, we have our mince pies, mulled wine and carols from Forest Voices who have grown in number from last time I heard them. Their volume swells through the garden with old carols and pops. We have a good …
It’s wet and its cold. We swaddle up to keep the heat in. We tell each other it is close to zero. That is the Celsius scale, formally known as Centigrade. The scale was invented by the Swedish Astronomer, Anders Celsius in 1742. 0ºC is the freezing point of water and 100ºC its boiling point. These keys points crop up …
It has been cold the last few days, with a frost this morning. Frosts mean the end of the mushroom season but also has benefits in that they kill off pests like greenfly that would survive the winter. If our winters continue to be mild, and we get them without frosts we will have more pests attacking vegetables and decorative …
Another wet November day. Chilly but not yet cold enough to deter mushrooms. On the limit though, perhaps the ground is holding a little heat, as in a walk in Epping Forest yesterday, I saw more mushrooms than I’d ever seen in the forest before, growing on the ground, on decaying stumps, and growing off trees. Few visitors today. It …
Sunday was our Welcoming Winter celebration. It came in with a blast of rain over most of the day. We put up three gazebos, one for the children’s area, one for the musicians and another for their audience. The food tables were under our pergola, which is sizeable and close enough for the music to be heard. Our musicians were …
It’s a cold day, the breeze adding a chill. Spates of sunshine warm us up, but they don’t last long as the sky is full of drifting cloud. This is autumn seasonal weather, while we have been spoilt by an Indian summer with temperatures in the 20s, so temperatures 10 degrees cooler are a shock. Its scarves and fleeces today, …
A tree makes news! How beautiful, how sad. I am of course referring to the sawing down of the tree in Sycamore Gap along Hadrian’s Wall. A tree made famous by its inclusion in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) with Kevin Costner as the outlaw. It was voted tree of the year in 2016 in the Woodland Trust Award. …
