Our rosy-red minnows have only been in our brand new pond for a few weeks, but there’s a male busily protecting a clutch of eggs underneath a tiny pond-lily leaf. They may hatch any time now. Exciting.


2 June 2011 at 20:16 (House and garden, Wildlife)
Our rosy-red minnows have only been in our brand new pond for a few weeks, but there’s a male busily protecting a clutch of eggs underneath a tiny pond-lily leaf. They may hatch any time now. Exciting.


15 May 2011 at 21:45 (House and garden)

We hope that this black gold (a.k.a. compost) will do much to improve our sandy, dry soil. It’s not only for the vegetable garden, but also for the ornamental garden, which is now shaping up nicely. The pond is mostly finished (it has water, plants and a few tiny fish) and DH is now laying a 10 cm layer of compost on the soil around the pond. After that, we can start planting. Oh dear… we need a plan…
9 May 2011 at 9:46 (Miscellaneous, House and garden)
After months of preparation and shuffling around paving stones and cubic yards of sand by DH, we now have a flower garden layout. That means that the crater where we wanted to create a pond, could also actually be made into a pond. Lovely. A well deserved icecream was consumed to celebrate!

30 March 2011 at 8:48 (House and garden, Wildlife)
This morning I spotted a bluetit seaching for insects in our magnolia stellata. Such a cheerful sight I wanted to post the picture, even if it isn’t that wonderful (small bird, big distance, average zoom lens).

19 March 2011 at 22:01 (Miscellaneous, Fruit, House and garden, Greenhouse)
Today we had a very productive day: DH built 9 meters of high fence to replace the one that went down in a storm a month ago. I spent the day weeding, repotting a nectarine tree, planting onion sets (in trays under glass), planting out 4 strawberry plants (Mara des Bois) and doing some cleaning out in the greenhouse. Very satisfying, but we will both be sore tomorrow!.

16 March 2010 at 22:02 (House and garden, Greenhouse)
13 March 2010 at 18:45 (House and garden, Greenhouse)
21 February 2010 at 19:06 (House and garden, Vegetable garden)
Despite low temperatures and the remains of snow and ice, the calendar insists that spring is coming. I really want to get gardening, but before any serious gardening can take place there remains a tremendous amount of work to be done. Remove lots of paving and improving the soil (at the moment it’s very sandy and almost no humus.
The picture is of the greenhouse I hope to buy shortly.