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 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.
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.
Calling all stag beetles
We have made a habitat for you to live in - we know you are rather rare but you would be very welcome. Nice tree trunks half-buried in a deep hole so the wood will rot.
Thanks to the hard work of Community Payback for doing this with our garden volunteers - and Guy for the tree trunks.
Cubs in the garden
On Monday 8 May we welcomed the 28th Cambridge cubs and also Alison from the RHS for a practical gardening skills - and fun - evening in the garden.
We sowed seed, took cuttings into gel pots, learned about compost and leaf mould, dug for compost worms and mulched strawberry beds. And drank hot chocolate - it was a really cold evening.
Tadpoles in the pond
Very excited... just a few and no legs yet. they were by the rail in the sun - maybe they are hiding under the decking?
Sunflowers are coming soon...
We had two beds with sunflowers last year and were keeping the heads on them to harvest seed from (and for the birds). Then the squirrels found them, and made a mess... but it means we had lots of dropped seed and they have just started to germinate and grow strongly. Not exactly where we would like them but we can always move them around and we hope our visiting cub group will sow some more seed.
Perennial meadow bed - coming to life
The Golden Summer mix is starting to germinate and grow now. The instructions say it takes a while to get going. If it is bushy by June, we are supposed to cut it, which will be very hard to do!
19 May update: we started some of the seed mix in a seedtray of sterile compost (indoors) and have just pricked out the unknown plants (see photo).
Mini-pond
We had a really good visit from some community gardeners from Peterborough last Sunday - we had been very inspired by a visit to them last Summer. One of the things on our wishlist, recommended by them, was to make a mini-pond next to the main one for children to huddle around and take pond-life to and fro from the main pond. So, under expert advice from Becki, Simon dug us a pond in the mound and we cut an old black tub to shape and surrounded it with leftover playground felt. Julian than made a cover for it and we filled it with leftover gravel. We are too late for spawn this year but hopefully it will be good for other creatures later this year.
Inclement weather
This Spring has been good for gardening groups - we haven't cancelled many for rain - because it has been so very, very dry. And then we suffered a hard frost. Thankfully, we had warning and covered our salad bed with fleece cloches for a few days. Lots of plants in the main beds had frost damage though and or donated fig tree lost all its buds - we hope it will make some more soon.
We are lucky we aren't growing crops commercially, and have a mains water supply now but it is sad to see the plants struggle.
Bowls, balls... habitats
We quite like the idea of having 'bowls' or balls of different materials in the former bowling green - and they are easier to make than other shapes too. The Cornus (dogwood) was cut from the park by volunteers and used while it was still supple.