Last Sunday Forest Gate had a month’s rain in a few hours. I checked this by measuring with a ruler the water collected in a tin bath that’s in the garden. You…

On Wednesday evening I came into the garden to water the plants, only to find the tap not working due to a fault on Gateway’s site next door. The garden was gasping,…

There remain tadpoles in the pond even in mid July. Some have left, others are almost frogs with froggy heads and limbs and the tail yet to be absorbed. Others are tadpole-like…

We’ve had lots of rain recently which means lots of growth, in spite of temperatures being on the low side. In the wildflower bed are red and yellow poppies in profusion. The…

What to do about the snails which are attacking the butternut squash and sunflowers in the square raised bed? I put copper coated mesh around the edge of the bed. It didn’t…

All the Americana plants are in place, a display of food plants that originated on the American continent. Most were brought to Europe by Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the late 15th…

  The scourers did not work as a snail barrier (see last week’s blog). A few days after putting them on the sides of the raised bed, the butternut squash and sunflowers…

Snails. Wet weather increases their number, and we had the rainiest May, followed by a few days of sunshine, and then a deluge last Friday. I came in on Saturday to look…

I come into the garden and witness three mesmerised volunteers. I quickly join them as we watch hundreds of tiny spiders crawling on the edge of a plastic table or dangling from…

It has rained all morning and much of the afternoon. Although May was very wet, the rain stopped in the last week of the month, and the temperature climbed to the mid…