Grow moar……

…… said Rob to the pak choi. And they did. So did the radishes, so we ate them today – very crispy and peppery.

I planted more stuff. All good.

Rob found a solitary bee nesting in the ground by the rockery. He then saw a wasp follow it into the hole. So he sat and waited to see what came out. A red-tailed bumblebee went in, followed by the wasp.  A white tailed bumblebee came out. Very odd.  So he sat and waited some more.

Watered & Fed……

…… plants and animals both. My cat, the neighbour’s cat, any random passing cat that pops in. All plants and seedlings also fed and watered. Lawn mowed.

Now to go and write a presentation on the dullest subject ever. IMCA DOLS S39A, S39C and S39D instructions and their purpose. If you have ever given a duller presentation, please let me know. I leave you with photos of the interesting bit of my day:

Grubby……

…… but happily knackered from footering in the garden. Plants watered, seedlings inspected, tomato plant rescued, couch grass dug out. Dear gods, the couch grass. How I LOATHE that stuff. The wild violets that have self-seeded everywhere are just as bad, but at least they’re pretty.

Sore thumb……

…… funky plaster.

In unrelated news, I spent some time gardening this evening. Accompanied by Ronnie, who was “helping” by leaping hysterically at everything.

Plants of Locko……

…… were looking beautiful today. It wasn’t the brightest or warmest, but Locko Park House was looking lovely, and many flowers were in bloom.

The arboretum walk was beautiful and calm.  Lots of gorgeous coloured rhododendrons.

Mahonia japonica

Where the dogs go……

Pine cone. Must find out what kind.

Paper birch (with ladybird).

Redwood bark.

Acer palmatum.

Knobbly lime tree.

Araucaria araucana bark at the bottom of the tree. I love this effect.

Drifts of hostas. Not a slug in sight. The bastards……

Perennial cornflowers.

Lily of the Valley.

Nekkid woman on the terrace.

Locko Park……

…… is where I have spent an inordinate amount of my time over the last 10 or so years. Today was a rare opportunity to see the “posh end” where LRPers are normally not permitted. As part of the National Gardens scheme, Locko opened the gardens to the public for the afternoon. By chance, we were passing and popped in.

This is the side of the house from the gateway to the stables.

The Big House – this looks like the main entrance, where horse-drawn carriages would have come in.

The front of the House.  Directly behind me is the big field and a distant view of the lake.

Decorative wall light thingy by the main door.

Lurking in the rhododendrons. There are two of these – on at either end of the ha-ha at the front of the house.  Both are a bit hidden.

Entrance to the house chapel.

Inside the chapel. This window is “The Passion.” It’s a very small private family chapel, and there was an inscription above the pulpit in Greek.  Sadly, Greek was never my strong point – Latin, yes, but Greek, no.

“Mary”
I’ll upload some of the garden and sculpture photos in another blog entry.  The garden is beautiful, and the Locko Park guys have done a lot of work on restoring areas since I was last in here several years ago.  The long border down the side of the walled garden has been restored, repaved and replanted.  The walled garden itself has been cleared of all the overgrown pines that were there, and the beech hedging trimmed and looked after.  The rose garden on the terrace has been cleared and replanted with new rose shrubs.  All good stuff.  And Bluebell Wood Farm were there doing ice-cream, so that was a good end to the afternoon.

50 Things……

…… to do before you are 11 and three-quarters. The latest study by Play England showed a third of parents will not let children do ‘risky activities’ like climbing trees. In an effort to give both parents and children more confidence the National Trust have created a list of ’50 things to do before you are 11 ¾’.

A report commissioned by the National Trust found children today spend fewer than ten per cent of their playtime in wild places. Dame Fiona Reynolds, the Director General of the Trust, said children need to reconnect with nature by playing the games generations before them have enjoyed.

“Getting outdoors and closer to nature has all sorts of benefits for our children. It keeps them fit, they can learn about the world around them and most of all its fun. That’s why it’s so worrying that so many children today don’t have the opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature. Building a den, picking flowers, climbing trees – the outdoors is a treasure trove, rich in imagination. It brings huge benefits that we believe every child should have the opportunity to experience. And there are huge costs when they don‘t. As a nation we need to do everything we can to make it easy and safe for our children to get outdoors. We want to move the debate on and encourage people and organisations to think about how we take practical steps to reconnect children with the natural world and inspire them to get outdoors.”

Bloody hell – do kids seriously not do these things anymore?! See the full list below. What have you done?:

1. Climb a tree
2. Roll down a really big hill
3. Camp out in the wild
4. Build a den
5. Skim a stone
6. Run around in the rain
7. Fly a kite
8. Catch a fish with a net
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree
10. Play conkers
11. Throw some snow
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach
13. Make a mud pie
14. Dam a stream
15. Go sledging
16. Bury someone in the sand
17. Set up a snail race
18. Balance on a fallen tree
19. Swing on a rope swing
20. Make a mud slide
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild
22. Take a look inside a tree
23. Visit an island
24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind
25. Make a grass trumpet
26. Hunt for fossils and bones
27. Watch the sun wake up
28. Climb a huge hill
29. Get behind a waterfall
30. Feed a bird from your hand
31. Hunt for bugs
32. Find some frogspawn
33. Catch a butterfly in a net
34. Track wild animals
35. Discover what’s in a pond
36. Call an owl
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool
38. Bring up a butterfly
39. Catch a crab
40. Go on a nature walk at night
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it
42. Go wild swimming
43. Go rafting
44. Light a fire without matches
45. Find your way with a map and compass
46. Try bouldering
47. Cook on a campfire
48. Try abseiling
49. Find a geocache
50. Canoe down a river

I think I can safely say I’ve done all but no44, and no50 was sea kayaking, rather than going down a river. And in all fairness, when I was a kid, geocaching was possibly up there with the hovercars/living in space of the future. We didn’t even own a TV before I was 11.

Moar planting……

…… in the garden today.

Put the lettuce plantlings in and planted the pea seeds. Bunged some spinach, spring onion and pak choi seeds too.

Had to bodge up some netting with Rob to stop the cats digging everything up. The bastards. They need reminding that this bed is not the terrace’s largest litter tray constructed just for them. Already, I have had to replant some sweet peas and remove some poo.

The tomatoes are doing well.

And Ronnie met Ruby. Not sure it was a roaring success. There was barking and scrabbling (Ruby) and hissing and bristling (Ronnie).  They both retreated in the end.  Don’t know about Ruby, but Ronnie looked a bit dis-chuffed with the whole encounter.

Excitingly, we also went to the tip and got rid of several bags of garden waste.  Woo – it’s the fast life in Derbyshire

 

Hi ho……

…… hi ho, it’s off to veg we sow. Ok, that was a bit crap. But today, weather gods willing, is all about the seeds. And moar compost.

4 mahoosive bags of compost later, we have a lovely finished veggie/herb bed.

And someone got himself a new phone. There was a bit of waiting……

And then the shiney arrived.

And I saw a woman with the wierdest painted on eyebrows. But I didn’t get a picture of that.

IKEA……

…… sell this. What do you think it is?!

Here’s a clue……..

It’s coconut fibre.  For rehydrating and planting in.  Or “coconut snot” as it is now known.  Lovely.  However, it kinda did the job in bulking out the raised bed compost-filling epic.  We’re still not finished.Rob does the mixing of the coco-snot.

The neighbour’s catling investigates.

I finish planting up the bronze fennel, sage bush (refugees from the old herb bed), the lemon balm section I saved, sweet mint and spearmint and a wee thyme plant.  The rosemary is waiting until more compost is purchased tomorrow.  Moar compost!!

I took advantage of a half-price growhouse offer in the garden centre, so that will get put up over the weekend, and I can grow on all the salad crops in there before planting them out in the new bed.  We also humphed a big pile of old salvaged bricks from one end of the garden to the other.  These are all now neatly stacked up at the end of the garden ready to have the old bits of cement chipped off them.  They will then be laid on the diagonal along the edge of the lawn to create a proper edge.  That’s the plan anyway.