Release Your Inner Squirrel

Is it just me or is collecting acorns seriously addictive?

I can’t go out at the moment without returning with pockets stuffed full of acorns. I thought I’d offload some on the school gardening club but I was greeted with looks of horror all round when I announced we’d be planting tree seeds. A  group of forward-thinking 7 year olds demanded to know exactly what we were going to do with all those oak trees. A very good question (that’s what I always say when I’m stumped for an answer and playing for time) which needed a convincing answer.  So….

Firstly, it’s unlikely that all the acorns will germinate.

Secondly, if there’s a squirrel within a 50 mile radius, we’ve got a battle on our hands.

Thirdly, as we’re growing the trees in pots, the probability of keeping a small tree alive for a couple of years before it’s big enough to be planted out is around 20%*.

Fourthly, even if we decide to compost the young trees before they get too big, we’ve still learned a lot from collecting, planting and tending the seeds, not to mention thinking about plant life cycles.

Fifthly, we have a tree nursery at school for small trees that pupils don’t want to take home. Those that eventually get too big for the nursery will either be planted in the school grounds, or donated to the local gardening college or park.

That seemed to do the trick (phew), we planted our acorns and nearly all of them took the pots home.

If you’ve never tried planting tree seeds before, release that inner squirrel and give it a go. Acorns, conkers or sweet chestnuts are all good for beginners as they tend to have reasonable rates of success.

There’s not much to it really – bury the seed in some soil and forget about it until next spring. To increase your chances of success you can follow a few simple tips:

• Collect the plumpest seeds and discard any that show signs of damage (harsh, but it’s survival of the fittest).
• Plant straight away. All these seeds can die if they’re allowed to dry out. If you want to show off, the technical term is “recalcitrant seed”.
• Try the sink or swim test before planting, to select seeds which have the best chance of germinating.
• Remove anything that isn’t seed i.e. acorn cups, conker and sweet chestnut casings.
• Plant in a small pot (must have drainage holes) and ensure the seed is covered with its own depth of compost.  Or plant directly into the ground if you prefer.
• Water and cover with some sort of netting, otherwise the squirrels WILL find them and steal them.
• Leave outside to experience the full extremes of winter weather.

Shoots should appear some time in the spring.

And finally, I leave you with the results of the most glamorous acorn competition.

I think this is the Turkey Oak (Quercus cerris), or a hybrid of the Turkey Oak, and we’re loving those frivolous, frilly acorn cups.

* An entirely made up figure but you can’t beat a well-placed statistic.

Reasons to be Slovenly

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a domestic goddess. The last time I saw the bottom of the ironing basket was early 1992. And the garden has an abundance of withered seed heads like the one above.

So imagine my delight to discover that being untidy in the garden is a good thing.

Oh yes. If you’re racing round the garden like a whirling dervish busily deadheading, raking and tidying (you know who you are), you’re not doing the local wildlife any favours.  Instead of a perfectly manicured garden, you should be aiming for undisturbed piles of twigs and leaves, decaying seed heads and the more nooks and crannies the better.

Another advantage of being slovenly in the garden is that you can collect your own seed, not only saving yourself a fortune but keeping lots of children entertained in the process.

Our rule of thumb is that seed heads are ready for collecting when they look their absolute worst (serial deadheaders and neat freaks will have caved in and chopped well before this point). One of our Calendula plants illustrates this well:

Sunflowers are also good candidates for seed collecting with children, if you can get to the seeds before the birds. Useful if you have a large group of children, like a school gardening club, as each sunflower head has hundreds of seeds. A pair of tweezers can be handy for extracting the seeds.

The Aquilegia and Delphinium seed heads in our garden passed the looks-awful-ready-for-collecting-seed rule of thumb too. These were tricky as the slightest touch to the seed head sent sprays of seeds flying everywhere.  In the end we had to resort to putting a paper bag over the seed head before cutting from the plant in an attempt to contain the chaos.

Some of our seeds may not produce flowers that are identical to the parent plant. I can’t remember whether the delphiniums were F1 hybrids. If so, they definately won’t produce identical plants but for us this isn’t important.

Before storing, we separated the seeds from the chaff (the delightful technical term for all the rubbish that isn’t seed) and then left the seeds indoors to dry for a couple of days.

This was a perfect opportunity to make some more seed packets to store our seed until the spring. Full step by step instructions can be found here.

Damp and warm are the joint enemies when storing seed as this will encourage them to germinate or rot. So when the seeds are safely tucked into their packets we’ll find a cool, dry place to store them i.e. not a warm, steamy kitchen.

And the final task (sometimes the trickiest, I find) is to remember where you stored the seed packets so you can find them again next spring when it’s time to sow.

Balloons or spiders?

Oprah Winfrey has an irrational fear of balloons.  I know this because I pick up all sorts of useful information listening to the car radio on the school run.

I’m very comfortable around balloons but I’m not keen on spiders and I seem to have passed this irrational fear on to my daughters.

Late summer is not a good time for us arachnophobes. Everywhere you turn in the garden there’s a spider’s web. Plus the entire spider population of west London is now using our house as a meeting place. Or so it feels. Thank goodness I’m not a single parent otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get through the front door for upturned glasses.

And to add insult to injury, we came down to breakfast this morning and a huge spider had created an elaborate web just outside our kitchen window (photo above). I think they’re mocking us. I feel certain they’re running all over our faces while we sleep.

Not for the squeamish

Look away now if you’re squeamish about worms….oops, too late!

Today we took delivery of a new batch of worms for our wormery. The last inhabitants drowned (please don’t report us to the RSPCA) because the rain cover blew off the wormery and hasn’t been seen since.

The worms arrived through the post in a plastic pot which rather alarmingly had “microwaveable” written on the lid. The picture above shows them just after they were introduced to their new home; for the avoidance of doubt, no microwaving was involved. Two minutes later they had burrowed into the bedding of moist compost and shredded paper.

Only two things left on the “to do” list now:

1. Sort out new rain cover (rain forecast tomorrow so no hanging around with this one)

2. Name them all (making good progress so far; William, Walter, Wayne, Wendy, Whitney, Winifred, Winston, Woody, Warren…. only 291 more to go.)

No children please, we’re British

As well as being a terribly British affair, the Chelsea Flower is no place for children.  Children under 5 are banned and it’s usually so crowded that you wouldn’t wish to risk having your over 5s squashed.  But there’s still plenty of inspiration at Chelsea for child-friendly family gardens.

This enormous insect house was constructed on the end of a shed – a great project for an ambitious school gardening club?

Farewell January, hello February

So January is finally over, the bleakest month of the year apparently.

But we quite like January. It has its highlights; snow, sunny days with clear blue skies and the fact that you can hibernate without guilt after 4pm because it’s getting dark.

In fact the only problem I have with January is finding indoor activities for school gardening club when we can’t go outside because a) snow is covering the ground, or b) it’s raining, or c) it’s icy.

The “emergency indoor gardening list” has gradually expanded over the years and includes

• making seed packets for seed saved from the garden
• painting plant pots
• constructing grass heads (see header photo)

And the latest addition to the list is turning pebbles into ladybirds to use as decorations for the garden.  If you’re crafty you can even sneak in some educational bits without anyone realising – ladybird anatomy and the useful role of ladybirds in the garden.

Read on for step-by-step instructions.

World’s Biggest Wildlife Survey

If you’re in the UK this weekend you’ll be able to take part in the world’s biggest wildlife survey.  

All you have to do is watch the birds in your garden or local park for one hour over the weekend of 26 – 27 January 2013 and send the results to the RSPB.

Over half a million people are expected to take part in this 34th Big Garden Birdwatch and the RSPB will use the information to continue to monitor bird populations in the UK.

Check out their website for full instructions and some interesting statistics from earlier surveys.

For example, between 1979 and 2012, the following bird populations have declined in the UK:

• starlings (by an amazing 80%)
• house sparrows (by 67%)
• robins (by 32%)

And the following bird populations have increased over the same period:

• blue tits (by 20%)
• woodpigeons (by a whopping 800% !!)

As well as providing some useful data, it’s a good excuse to swot up on your bird identification skills (I’m off to start revising right now).  Schools are also invited to take part between 21 January and 1 February 2013, and the RSPB website has lots of downloadable resources to help.   Happy birdwatching!

Shhhhh! Insects sleeping….

….. in this bespoke insect hotel.  Constructed this afternoon in 20 minutes flat by a group of enthusiastic 7 and 8 year olds.

Hopefully it will soon be home to many resting/hibernating insects, a few of which might even be beneficial for the garden if we’re lucky.

And best of all, it didn’t cost us a penny – it’s made entirely from recycled materials.

October Half Term

No need for boredom to set in during half-term when there’s a different garden-related activity for each day:

This is a small bird feeder that attaches to an outside window – now positioned in view of our kitchen table so we can watch the birds feeding while we eat.  So far, visitors have included robins, squirrels and a small knitted pigeon (more of which later).

Time to wrap up warm and go on an acorn-hunting expedition.

Back at home, plant your acorns as soon as possible – they’re prone to drying out which reduces their ability to grow.  Try this simple trick to check if your acorns are likely to germinate and grow into oak trees.

Plant your acorns in a pot filled with compost (or directly into the ground) just below the surface so they are about 2 to 3cm deep.

Leave the pots outside over winter and protect from squirrels, who will think you have prepared a scrumptious winter snack just for them.

Seedlings should appear next spring, fingers crossed!

Many insects are good for the garden.  For example ladybirds and lacewings eat greenflies while solitary bees are important for pollination.  So give them a helping hand and build them a shelter for the winter.  It doesn’t have to be as elaborate as the one above and you can make it from entirely recycled materials.  The more nooks and crannies, the better.

We’re loving these beautifully made kits from postcarden.

This one is the matchcarden village church and at less than £5 a kit, it’s tempting to buy a whole village.

The kit comes with cress seeds which sprouted within 3 days.  Probably about the speediest thing you can grow and great for short attention spans.

The cress is destined for some egg and cress sandwiches and we’ll replant the church garden with some spare cress seeds we happen to have hanging around.

Must mention that wonky bird feeder to the vicar…..

..and resolve to grow your own pumkin next year.  April is a good time to start sowing pumpkin seeds so make a diary note now if you’re one of those organised people who has already bought next year’s diary.

It’s probably too late for daffodils but there’s still plenty of time to plant tulips.

In fact you may be able to grab a bargain as bulbs are often reduced in price at this time of year to make way for Christmas stock.

Plant tulip bulbs at any time up to the end of December.  Plant in large pots with the pointed end facing up, deep enough so that two imaginary bulbs could sit on top, beneath the compost surface.  Multi-purpose compost is fine.

Bulbs in pots can be planted close together but try to make sure they’re not touching.

One word of caution; drainage holes at the bottom of the pot are essential, otherwise the bulbs may rot.

And finally, on a rainy day (there’s bound to be at least one) settle down with a hot chocolate and a learn to knit video from the internet.  I had the challenge of teaching right and left-handed daughters to knit whilst barely being able to remember the basics myself, but it all worked out in the end.  I’d recommend big knitting needles and chunky wool for beginners.

Once you’ve mastered casting-on, the knit stitch and casting-off, you’re experienced enough to knit your own garden birds.  The flock above was based on a simple pattern by Buttonbag, an ideal project for beginners.  We knitted 2 squares for each bird, sewed them together, stuffed, decorated with felt and then squished* into the correct shape.  The RSPB site is a great resource for information about garden birds.

* This is a technical knitting term although you won’t find it it many books.

Wasps’ nest

wasps’ nest in progress

We discovered the start of a wasps’ nest in our allotment shed earlier this week.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photograph which was taken hastily under threat of stinging.

What the photograph doesn’t convey is the beautiful, papery nature of the nest, with embryonic chambers on the inside.  All the more amazing that it’s made from wood pulp collected by the wasps and mixed with their saliva.

Despite it’s beauty, we weren’t keen to share our shed with wasps.  But fortunately on a return visit later this week, there were no further signs of building work progressing and the nest had started to disintegrate.  Phew.