Last weekend, I was doing some early morning scything to cut some grass around my vegetable patches. It's a very peaceful start to the day that I enjoy very much. The ideal time to cut grass with a scythe is around dawn when the grass is wet with dew. Sometimes when I'm doing this, there are pheasants in the adjacent field, sometimes a fox, and sometimes other birds. It's like … [Read more...] about Pleasant pheasants
Natural Gardening
Hartley Greenhouse – the good and the bad
I've recently had a Hartley Greenhouse (from Hartley Botanic) installed in our lower garden that I'm trying to turn into a beautiful natural garden. To install the greenhouse, it needed to have a substantial base built and then have the Hartley Greenhouse installed on that. You can see photos of all this construction below (click on the images to see them … [Read more...] about Hartley Greenhouse – the good and the bad
Planting trees and shrubs – 24 of them!
This year some might say I've got a little bit over board, as I've planted 24 trees and shrubs in my back garden. It really isn't as silly as it sounds as we have a rather large garden and I have about half an acre that I'm trying to turn into a lovely natural garden. I've been planting trees and shrubs over the past 3 weeks and have plenty of photos to share on this … [Read more...] about Planting trees and shrubs – 24 of them!
Scything with frost
Back at the end of October we got our first frost of the year and I had no idea what it would be like scything with frost. I know, you're probably thinking "scything!" Cutting grass with a scythe? Yes, it's all true and it's not as crazy as you think. Back in 2015, our back garden had hip-high grass and I was wondering how to get it under control. I went on a scything course … [Read more...] about Scything with frost
Garden Diversity and Slugs
While Kim was visiting us in the UK, I planted some cabbages and pumpkin vines in my new, fledgling garden, but they were attacked very quickly by slugs. Hmm. How annoying. I'm trying to keep the garden as close to organic as possible, so I don't want to use any chemicals to kill the slugs. I started to look into garden diversity as an option and investigated which plants slugs … [Read more...] about Garden Diversity and Slugs