Category: Garden
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Waterworks
I have accidentally turned my garden into a shady woodland grove, which has been awesome, particularly in the summer. I’ve been able to spend long, hot summer days working on our lawn without even bothering with suncream (and not getting burnt), and the patch of green that we have agreed to call a meadow stays…
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Disappointing potato harvest
I just harvested the first two tubs of patio potatoes. It’s not terribly impressive. It is about what I expected from these two pots, unfortunately. They are two that we’ve had for a while now, and they have internal water reservoirs at the bottom. Usually that really helps the plants to survive my sporadic watering,…
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Experimental growth
This year as part of the window ledge growing plan, I appear to have accidentally set up a weird experiment with my basil plants. I potted them on in clumps, into three pots – two of my self-watering ones, and one that I used with great success last year. I didn’t pot them on very…
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Let it grow
Spring is a busy time for a lazy gardener. It’s the time of year where I need to do a certain amount of prep work if I want to be able to harvest things later in the year, or just to sit and enjoy the lovely garden without feeling guilty! Last weekend being Easter was…
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Replacements
The electrician party I thought we were going to be throwing in my last post did not, in fact, happen. Sadly, the electrician who was supposed to be fitting the infrared panels let us down. Twice. On the Monday he emailed to say he had stomach issues, he’d be with us on Saturday. On the…
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I like big butts
It’s felt like a strange summer here in the UK. Other than a couple of weeks that were hotter than we’ve ever been before, the rest of the summer has felt a bit meh. My solar panels say we’ve had a lot of sun, but I’ve barely sat outside at the patio table. But it…
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Window ledge review
This is the second year of growing things on my home office window ledge. It wasn’t such a good year, but I have some reasons. This was taken mid-September. I’d already harvested the basil (which was in the pot with the yellow fly-catcher), and actually I had a good year for basil. I’ve got enough…
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Sorry Starlings (blame the squirrel)
Pretty much as soon as we put the arch up in the garden back in 2015, I added a bird feeder. A fat ball holder, which I think would hold four fat balls if I ever filled it that full. It’s had a few adventures over the years – early on I think either a…
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Once more, with pictures
I thought I’d just pop up a few of the pictures that should have gone with the previous post. First up, the blackbird nest: Yep, it’s not remotely hidden from us in the conservatory this year. The rose hasn’t grown around it yet. I can’t see any way that the female blackbird is going to…
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Spring is springing
Must be Spring, we’ve just been to WCAGS again. (I’ll definitely do a write up this time, for sure, but right now it’s just the pre-meet info.) The other thing that means is that I’ve been busy in the garden. I love my garden, but honestly I far and away prefer sitting in it and/or…
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Window Ledge Review
It’s time for my seasonal office plants to go now, I think. I’m genuinely bad at knowing when it’s time for plants to be done, but in this case they are blocking my office window. That was part of the plan during the summer, to try and keep the room a bit cooler – not…
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Office plants
One of the things I enjoyed about my office during my PhD was that I grew a number of plants on my window ledge. It’s not so easy to do in a commercial office – aircon, poor light, commercially supplied planting, etc. But working from home, in a south-facing room no less, gives me the…