Late July in the garden

We grow a mix of flowers and produce in the garden but at least some of the foods we allow to flower in case they are attractive to insects. Bees love globe artichokes! A single bumblebee can spend many minutes crawling over the purple flower, which gives ample opportunity for even an average camera phone to get at least one photo in focus.

Bees like sunflowers too.

For the second time, a family released their grown-from eggs painted lady butterflies in the garden. Apparently they hang around in the release spot for some time afterwards. We have seen some in the garden some days afterwards. 

Families like hunting for creatures in the garden - this was one of the best catches so far - a common frog - probably three or four years old - in the long grass.

We also make artificial habitats for wildlife. In this case, a disguise for our water tower. We drilled long holes of three diameters in recently cut branches - from local nature reserves and parks and brought to us by Guy and Vic. It is important you don't use chemically-treated wood for this - or the insects laying eggs might be harmed.

Morning moths

Lesser elephant hawkmoth - the third year we have recorded this species - and always popular.

We had a really good morning in the garden, opening up Guy's overnight moth trap. We think we had about 19 new species, not recorded in the past two years. We will send the records into local databases. The largest and most spectacular moths are the hawkmoths but the smaller ones are very beautiful too.

Some of the moths in the trap collect in egg boxes - there were masses of them this year.

The moths like to settle on people, which is very endearing

Sometimes they tickle a bit...

And some of them are massive. This is one of two poplar hawkmoths. We have a large poplar tree by the garden gate. The one we saw last year was a bit moth eaten but this one looked to be in mint condition.

One of two stag beetles - very excited to see these because we have recently made a habitat especially for them.

A click beetle, which refused to do the click beetle trick - jumping while making a click sound.

We had such a successful trap, Guy offered to return later in the year (scheduled for Sunday 8 October during the Funpalace) to see what we have living in the garden then. We will post the dates and times on the QECF website.

Bats in the garden

Pond dipping

We had a lovely evening talking about the pond, adding some more plants, sticklebacks and a dragonfly larva, setting up an overnight moth trap and bat watching and detecting. We saw and heard four species of bat this year:

A dragonfly larva gift to the pond. We have lots of dragonflies and damselflies visiting the pond and laying eggs so soon we can look out for some hatched in our pond.

• Noctule, which is the largest we have, first to fly, high above the garden - rather like a swift - it feeds on the Light arches moths we caught in the trap.
• Common pipestrelles - much smaller and later and lower flying (as it is getting dark) - a couple flew circuits low over the pond catching flies above our heads.
• Serotine pair - larger than the pips and much rarer - Guy thinks there is a maternity roost in a building nearby.
• Soprano pipestrelle - a new species for us in the garden and park.

Swimming around on the pond

Mrs Mallard and her ducklings, having a swim in the early evening sun

On Wednesday, we spotted twelve baby ducklings and their mother swimming on the pond. But we shouldn't be surprised if they dwindle in number over the next few days and weeks.

According to our pond advisor: they should be eating insects (and not sliced bread) so please don't be tempted to feed them. Although they are very cute, we'd like them to fly (or waddle) away fairly soon or our pond will just become a muddy duck pond and we won't have good pond dipping opportunities.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind...

In fact, on Thursday, a similar sized group were spotted in a garden across the road from the park so maybe they are hunting for the safest place to be with the tastiest food (or had been reading this webpage).

Update 2 July: four ducklings spotted with their mother - and a visiting cat eyeing them up... hope they survived the encounter!

Update: August - all four ducklings grew to adult size and were seen often in the garden, especially at night. We have seen them since mid-August and assume they have now moved on.

Cambridge Wild in the garden

A bumble bee slowly reading the poster on this year's activities...

We have chosen dates and are starting to plan activities. See the Cambridge Wild page for more information (poster).

If you can help us on the day or beforehand, it would be very welcome. We don't have a budget for this so what we offer is quite simple...

Cubs in the garden

Doughnut bubbles

As part of our RHS Greening Grey Britain project, we welcomed the Tuesday group of the 28th cubs along last evening. We:

• Hunted for strawberries of several types;
• Tasted some ripe blackcurrants;
• Harvested a few baby carrots - and kept the tops for Emma's guinea pigs;
• Pulled a straw bale to pieces and used it to mulch the strawberry and onion beds;
• Planted some young lavender plants - with RHS gloves and tools;
• Looked at the moth mullein caterpillars, which are munching the mullein plants - but didn't vomit at us.
• Toasted some marshmallows and drank hot chocolate;
• And perfected making giant bubbles, using RHS garden tubs.

White  'Snow White' strawberries (pineberries), with their new mulch. They are just starting (eat them when they are slightly yellow and soft) but were very popular - they are sweet and have a hint pineapple.

It was really good to welcome back the cubs and their adult helpers on a warm Summer evening - the last time they came in November 2016 to plant crocus bulbs the weather was about as bad as it could be.

Big Walkers in the garden

Enjoying some simple food together in the garden

On Weds 7 June, we welcomed a party of Big Walkers to the garden for a(n impromptu) Little Get-Together. These were people from the Eden Project/Jo Cox Foundation on their way from Batley to London for the Great Get-Together weekend.

We 'bring and shared' snacks from around the world and then tasted some delicious vegetarian Sri Lankan curries and rice. It was very chilled, the weather was good, and a good way to meet new people and make new friends.

We had invited garden volunteers, social walkers and local people interested in community projects especially those to do with loneliness and health. We also welcomed anyone who happened to be in the garden that evening...

• A mention on Cambridge 105 radio (about 6 mins in).

Going up

Wigwam and A-frame crazy...

We have been having fun making vertical structures again - this time to grow runner beans and climbing French beans. But they also look good on the very flat ex-bowling green.

Overnight these white daisies started to flower too - all self-seeded on the disturbed soil next to the pond. Very frothy.

Tall poppy syndrome... over the woven fence...

We have wheat growing - no idea where this seed came from.

Our seed potatoes are also growing tall - so we have added extra slats and earthed them up (must paint that sign).

Even our red hot pokers are growing tall with the sun and rain we have had recently (don't look at the thistle next door).

Sweet williams...

Globe artichoke (rescued from a bulldozer) doing well in one of the the veg ditches.

Cedric the centipede

Posing for a photo

With it being half-term holiday, we have lots of families in the garden - and we were also turning the compost heap - to find this minibeast. Some discussion about whether it was a centipede or a millipede and if s/he would make a good take-away pet (page about both). We didn't like to say s/he was 'common'.

Hanging habitat and plants on the move

We hope the hanging basket construction will be good for ladybirds, lacewings and spiders to hang out - and we like the way it looks.

We finally got around to using and fixing two of the hanging baskets (and brackets) we were donated some time ago, now filled with pine cones, dried leaves and straw.

We also made a start on our scented mini garden around a bench. The soil was dug over by the Community Payback team and we enriched it with well-rotted horse manure.

First planting - and looking a bit floppy. We have an upright rosemary, three kinds of sage, lavenders, scented geraniums, thyme and an edging of chives (divided from a big clump we were donated. We will soon buy a climbing rose, alpine clematis and a dwarf honeysuckle, maybe a dwarf lilac and a winter flowering honeysuckle. And then add some bulbs later on.

Our salad bed is looking amazing - the curly and flat-leaved parsley and chard had germinated really well so we had lots of plants to thin out - some we potted them on to give away and made more rows in the bed too.

Some rather floppy thinned parsley plants in our salad row - when they perk up, we will probably move them on again.