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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 …
It is autumn, or as, they say in the US, fall, an apt name as the big signifier is falling leaves. Meteorological autumn began on September 1st, astrological autumn in a few days with the equinox on September 21st. Deciduous trees will lose all their leaves between now and December. This is very noticeable along Earlham Grove where curled, brown, …
We have our standpipe. Thames Water put in the meter and piping, ready for us to fix a standpipe which we did midweek. It was quite an effort getting through the concrete and needed a hefty drill. But it has been done. We have used it for watering the garden. I did one of the sessions myself. I am sure …
On Bank Holiday Monday, we had a celebration in the garden. Some fried vegetables from the raised beds were shared around, we had a plant sale, drawing for children and cyanotype printing. The latter was organised by Max, the garden co-ordinator, and was very popular, mostly with adults but some older children had a go too. Cyanotype printing is a …
Forest Gate Community Garden Saturday, 26 August 2023 We have two cherry trees at the front of the garden. The larger of the two may be 50 years or more old. It is certainly in peak condition with no rot or decay. In late April or early May, it is a glorious froth of pink blossom, enhanced by the lack …
100s of sycamore seeds are dangling from our two sycamore trees. They have mostly lost any green colour, now light brown, and are in pairs connected at the ‘heads’ with the wings at right angles. We call them helicopters because when picked up in the wind they twirl and fly some distance from the mother tree. There are so many …
There are many honey bees about the garden. In the hollyhocks, around the globe thistles and deep in the penstemons. Though, you often see a bee head into a flower and immediately back out and go to another. They have smelt an earlier bee in the first flower, and know that there will be little nectar left, and so don’t …
The pond is a green oasis. Under the surface are a forest of two oxygenators: hornwart and Canadian pond weed. It is difficult to see any animal life in the density of foliage. I am curious about our Peter Pan tadpoles, those that refuse to grow up. The usual state of affairs is that tadpoles, which emerge from the spawn …
We had eight hours of rain on Friday. Most of it gentle, but heavy in patches. It was very welcome, after a dry week. The pond hardly looks any higher but our IBCs (big tanks) are fuller. And the rain was everywhere, all over the garden, which sounds a little obvious, but if you are dependent on watering cans, then …
It is cooler but mainly dry. Any rain we have had hardly soaks into the soil. The wildflower bed is sad, the flowers gasping, the stems languid. Drought rushes plants through their cycle as they are stressed, and must set seed before lack of water kills them. Our plants in pots dry out quickly, one of our apple trees, in …
