How I made my washing up bowl pond.

The newest addition to my garden is a cute little washing up pond.  I don't have room for a big pond, but any amount of water is good for attracting wildlife and bringing balance to the garden.

I was inspired by the RSPB, who recommend making mini ponds as part of it's 'homes for nature' scheme, and you can find their instructions here, but this is what I did to make my very own washing up bowl pond, 

You will need,

a washing up bowl

gravel

stones

sticks

terracotta plant pots

rainwater

pond weed

and tools, a spade and a spirit level

Your little pond needs to be in a spot where it's light but not in full on sunshine all day.  The first step is to just dig a hole that your washing up bowl will fit into.

Next, use a spirit level to check the bowl is level and adjust the hole accordingly if necessary. 

Pop the washing up bowl in the hole and fill in any big gaps round the sides with soil.  Then you get to do the fun bit - making a nice little habitat for your underwater friends.  I added gravel to the base and a little terracotta pot for critters to hide in.  It's a really good idea to have a pile of stones and a stick to act as a ramp in and out of the pond so no-one gets stuck in there if they fall in (hedgehogs, I'm looking at you!).

Fill your mini pond with rainwater and add some pond weed.  My mum has a pond, so she kindly gave me some water, weed and frogspawn to start my pond off, but this isn't essential - the wildlife will find your pond all on it's own!  If you have some big stones and gravel then add them round the edges of the washing up bowl pond to make it look pretty, and to provide an extra habitat too.  The broken plant pot is there to hopefully tempt a frog or two to hang out by the pond!

For a final flourish I planted some mind your own business (also dug up from around mums pond!) round the edge of the pond to hide the top of the washing up bowl a little bit.

And that's it.  Because I added water from an established pond I already have lots of wildlife in my mini pond.  I've spotted freshwater shrimp, water fleas, water snails and tadpoles.  It's well exciting.

My next plan?  Washing up bowl ponds all over the garden, and a bin lid bog area!

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Diary of a suburban edible garden, March 2017.

I'm so busy this month in the garden, I have so much I want to get done!

I've been planting seeds all over the place, down the side garden I've planted Californian poppy, crimson clover and vetch seeds around my apple tree.  Clover and vetch are used as green manures, their roots help the soil structure and fix nitrogen, I'm hoping by planting them here I can improve the soil a little, it's really poor in this bed.  I've also planted a little clematis up the fence at the back.

Lots of raspberry suckers have popped up this spring.  I'm really happy about that, because yey, I get free plants and free food!  Nothing else really grows very happily here, apart from weeds and Mediterranean herbs, so if the raspberries want to take over that's fine by me! 

I made a cute little washing up bowl pond this month.  This is recommended by the RSPB as a good way to attract wildlife into your garden.  Mum gave me a bucket o' pond weed and frogspawn from her pond so I'm really hoping I get some frogs!

I decided it was high time I cleaned out my greenhouse, it's all shiny now.  And I've planted a LOT of seeds (see here for a list of everything I'm planting).  That packet of mixed perennials cost about 70p on sale last year, I can't wait to see what grows from it! 

I've been seed starting in cut down loo rolls and egg boxes, and propagating in our conservatory.  I'm starting the seeds in there, then moving them to the greenhouse once they've grown on a bit.

Look at the buds on these blueberries - can't wait!  'Scuse the weeds.

Joe's been working hard on the hedge at the back of the garden.  He's trimmed a lot off the height, the only problem is it's quite thin now and people walking down the alley keep noseying in our garden! 

The next job is to dig away some of that bank of soil at the base of the hedge and reclaim the garden!  The soil there comes out several feet and we're going to have to put that soil somewhere, soooo... I bought a couple of raised beds.  They're phase one of our project to get rid of the (horrible, patchy, weedy, bumpy) lawn.  I've only put one together so far, but there's another exactly the same.  We're going to fill them with soil and plant them up, then start mulching and planting over the lawn.  Until it's all gone.  Buh-bye lawn. 

It's looking very 'work in progress' right now.  I must finish painting the fence before summer kicks in and there's too many plants to get through.  I've got to get rid of that table too, it's been in the middle of the garden for ever, can you tell I'm not quite sure what to do with it! 

How's your garden this month?

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Making a Log Pile for your Garden.

It's really easy to make a log pile for your garden, to attract wildlife.  

We had some big logs from when we chopped down the overgrown lilac tree in our garden, and I asked Joe to saw them into smaller pieces for me.  That's all you need, some logs and maybe some smaller twigs and sticks.  

I left the logs on the garden path waiting for the mood to build a log pile to strike, and in that time plenty of woodlice made it their home, and some impressive fungus grew too!

I used instructions from the RSPB and Wild About Nature.

I laid about 4 logs on the ground, added a second layer of logs, then a layer of smaller twigs.  

Then piled some more logs on top.  It really wasn't very scientifical!

And that's it, all done!

Do you have a log pile?  What creatures live in yours?

Bees!

My garden has been very busy with bees!  

The buddleia and shrub with tiny pink flowers (anyone know what that is?) were already in my garden when I moved here, I found them under some weeds!

Do you have little fuzzy buzzy friends in your garden?

Our Fish had Babies!

Last winter we noticed tiny baby fish in the pond at mums house. They have survived the cold and grown into bigger babies, enjoying splashing around now it's a bit warmer.

The food pellets floating on the water in these pictures are about 1cm long, so you can see the baby fish are really tiny and cute! 

Do you have baby animals in your garden?

Buddleia...Butterfly Madness...

I've never seen as many butterflies as I have this year, but especially on the buddleia in Mums garden there are loads.  I counted 35 just on the side of the buddleia I could see!

I've helpfully pointed out all the butterflies in the above photo!

Do you have an influx of butterflies where you are?

Peacocks, Peahens, Chickpeas and Powis Castle....

I had a lovely day out today with Mum going round the charity shops in Welshpool and visiting Powis Castle, which is pretty much my favourite National Trust property.  The most exciting thing today was that there was a baby peacock scampering about.  I think baby peacocks should be called chickpeas, they are cute...

We were also treated to the sight of a deer and her baby while we had our picnic, although I didn't have my big camera with me so I could only take a very fuzzy photo!

The gardens were also very pretty, although it was too hot to walk very far...

Hope you've all been enjoying this lovely weather!

Busy, Buzzy Bees...

Some bees have set up home in a bird box at Mum's house...  

Only problem is that the box is on a south facing wall, and gets extremely hot on sunny days.  So the bees take it in turns to go and sit by the hole and fan cool air in with their wings.  I really love them.  As it gets hotter and hotter more and more bees come out to help with fanning duty.  (I stole the next two photos of mums facebook, they're taken with her phone, but give you an idea of the busyness!)

They are very loud!  After some internet research we think they are tree bumblebees.

Do you have any interesting summer visitors in your garden?

Little Robin Friend...

Mum's made friends with a Robin in the garden.  He is starting to be friends with me too.

He is very sweet and sits in the branches of the plum tree, singing very, very quietly, as if he is singing to himself.

Do you have friendly birds in your garden?

Meet Fredrick...The Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar...

This week my mum is staying at my brother's house, dog sitting while he's on holiday.  Today she popped home with a 'present' for me...an enormous caterpillar that she's found on the path at my brother's house and rescued because he 'looked cold', and probably so the dogs don't eat him.  I've done a bit of research on him, and he's an Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar, he likes to eat fuchsia and willow herb.  Currently he has lettuce and a pink flower to eat, I shall have to go on a fuchsia hunt under cover of darkness later! He would like a layer of soil and leaves to pupate in, he'll make a cocoon any time now, then he needs to hang out somewhere cool over winter, like the shed, then in spring he'll turn into a beautiful butterfly..well, moth!  I have called him Fredrick. 

This is what Fred will turn into one day!

from here

I found information from here and here especailly useful in finding out how to care for Fred.  Have you ever raised a caterpillar-child?  Any tips?

Baby Blackbird (and friends)...

Last night a horrible big jackdaw tried to eat the baby blackbirds out of the nest at the bottom of the garden.  Cue the blackbirds, mum and me going ballistic and scaring the jackdaw away and one baby bird escaping (I'm not sure how many babies were in the nest to begin with, so I'm not sure if any of the blackbird family were eaten).  The baby left his nest, but he's obviously not quite big enough to be ready, he spends his days flopping about the garden, with his beak open reeeeaaalllly wide waiting for daddy to feed him.  Last night I said some very rude words to the new neighbours cats, who were performing a pincer movement on him and were about to pounce!  He's very sweet.  I think I shall call him Burt.

We also have a sweet young pigeon frequenting our watering hole...wonder if he knows you're not supposed to sit in it!

We also have slightly more sensible baby sparrows, starlings, robins and dunnocks in our garden at the moment, who don't sit still to have their photos taken!

Do you have any bird families in your garden?