Keeping the Birds Fed

On Wednesday, we had a visitor - Alistair MacKenzie (Lewis's granddad).  He had a good look around to see how the garden was looking whilst Lewis was in a meeting about a school trip to Malysia that he's been fund-raising to go onto for ages!  Believe it or not, Lewis has now left school, so has become our first "Old DiGGer!"  Meanwhile, we melted some lard and added bird seed and oats into it before pouring it into an old yoghurt pot.

If you thread the string through a circle of cardboard which is then placed in the bottom of the pot, then the pot remains in tact to prevent leaks!  It can then be re-used.  We just held the pot in a bowl of hot water for a couple of seconds on Thursday once it had set hard and the bird-cake slipped out easily...

 ...ready to hang out for the birds.  We then made another to put out next week.  We also filled the bird feeder with nuts and retrieved a seed-feeder from the undergrowth at the bottom of the hill by the fence.  We couldn't find the base of it, so will have to try and fashion something to fix it!

After that, we just had time to pull out a couple of the walking stick cabbages and cut off the root ball.  We will dry the stalks and see if they are any good for walking sticks in future!

Clear Wintry Weather

                                         A lovely sunny frosty morning...

                                          ...it took a while to get into the shed as the lock was frozen!

 This week our aim was to fix the Olympic Jubilee Greenhouse

                                                  You can see panels missing on all sides!

                           Luckily, the contents are mostly waterproof, so no damage done.

                On Wednesday, Danielle cut some lengths of cane...

...and we wedged them into the frame to hold the panels back in place. 

Meanwhile, the Betty MacKenzie greenhouse sits snuggly in the frost!

 Teasels provide seeds for the birds.

 On Thursday, we cut back some of the Walking Stick Cabbages and mixed them into the compost with the canteen waste.

Garden Survives Rough Wind

 Happy New Year to everyone! 

 DiGGers are back and we have been checking out the state of the garden.  There was some very high wind during the holidays, and we are grateful to James the caretaker for collecting our Olympic Jubilee Greenhouse panels that were blown out as they were scattered about the school grounds!

 The panels were all clipped in, but we need to add extra struts to hold them more securely as they are rather long and wind obviously got in underneath them.  It is a second-hand greenhouse.  When it was new, it had plastic components that the panels slotted into at the bottom which helped hold them in place.  These had degraded and broken, so we didn't use them when we assembled it.  We have a plan however - look out next week hopefully to see a fixed and restored greenhouse!

 Meanwhile, the Betty MacKenzie Greenhouse withstood the wind well.  Here you can see the hedge plants that we stored in there over the holidays, protected against frost by wrapping them in shredded bark.

 We planted three more into the hedge line on Thursday and watered them in well.

 The hedge line is looking good.  Just needs covering with bark chips once we have planted the whole hedge.  We also need to weed the wild flowers on the right hand side, ready for the seeds to be re-sown later in the year.

 The rest of the garden is pretty much as expected!  Wintry and dormant, waiting for Spring to arrive.  We did see two blue tits at the bird table on Wednesday, so filled the feeder up for them.

 The path needs raking as the wet leaves are quite slippery.  There are also some branches and sticks that have fallen from the trees overhead.  They need gathering up for our "stick pile".

Also, the shed roof still needs attention.  Our "patch" is still letting in water as it is wet inside.  We may need to buy a whole roll of new felt to overcome the leak.