Garden, September 2015.

Suddenly it's autumn!

I've been planting lots of bulbs this month, in big pots and in any spaces I can find in the garden too.

My garden chum this month was this big ol' spider!

Quite often I'm kept company by one or two squirrels, who race along the fence and jump into the trees from the shed roof.  It makes quite a noise!  This one is Pirate Pete, the one eyed squirrel!

 

The lilac tree we cut down last month has made lots of new sprouts, I'm so glad it's growing back!

Most excitingly, we got raised beds for the front garden!  Last month I was talking about digging bigger beds in the front garden, but I read a book about front garden growing and decided raised beds would be quicker and a lot less digging.  

I've filled one up so far, using the lasagna method (lots of layers!), and planted onion sets, garlic, rainbow chard and perpetual spinach seeds, leek seeds and some pansies from a bargain 20p pack of almost dead plug plants from Wilkos.  

As well as being excited about having some extra growing space, with nicer soil, spending all weekend in the front garden doing something unusual means I've spoken to loads of neighbours I haven't met before.  Lovely!

I had some onion sets left over, so I popped them in the garden bed, in the space where the broad beans were.  I don't hold out much hope for these ones, the soil isn't great in this bed.  I'm planning to harvest some of these onions early, and to eat the leaves, so maybe I'll get something out of them. 

 

This is a very confused strawberry!

There are still some pretty, colourful flowers!

This is the garden bed at the side of the house.  In the foreground you can see my courgette plant (it's grown lots of courgettes, sadly slugs keep getting to them before I do), and my autumn raspberries, in the background are lots of lovely herbs. 

Here's the garden in all it's glory!

What's happening in your gardens this month?

I post garden-y updates on my facebook and twitter too!

Birmingham Owl Trail, The Big Hoot.

We went to Birmingham last week, not realising that the city has been taken over by owls!

We didn't have an owl trail map, so we didn't get to see them all.

Here are my favourites,

This was THE BEST OWL MADE FROM MOSAICS OF RETRO CROCKERY!!!!!!

You can never have too many owls, I say!

Have you seen the Birmingham owls?

Charity Shopping, Birthday Charity Shop Haul.

It was my birthday earlier in the month, and I went charity shopping  on my birthday, to a market the day after, charity shopping later in the week and some of my presents came from the charity shop too!

I really came home with a haul, here's what I got,

Wicker Owl (his head comes off, so he's a basket-y sort of owl!).

2 for £1 table, local charity shop.

Glass plate.  I had to buy this, so I could have the owl off the 2 for £1 table!  I quite like it though, I will serve nuts from it in a retro fashion at Christmas.

2 for £1 table, local charity shop.

Snail and tortoise funny tiny creatures with holes in, maybe for tiny plants?  I have no idea what these were originally used for!

29p and 39p, local charity shop.

Hornsea Fauna deer vase.  Yes, I have another one of these, but I needed this one too! 

£3, stall on Birmingham Rag Market.

I never find nice t-shirts in charity shops, but this one is STRIPY! and like new, and from Marks and Spencers.

£1, local charity shop.

Wooden necklaces.  

99p for 2, local charity shop.

Retro Swedish kitchen canisters.  I'd looked at these myself in the charity shop, but my mum actually bought them for me for my birthday (without me knowing!).  They have 'JIE Sweden' imprinted on their bases, and I think they're mid-century.

Present, local charity shop.

Phew!

Have you bought something beautiful (or lots of beautiful somethings!) from the charity shop recently?

Linking up with Flaunt it Friday and Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

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?

Make One Small Change - Join your Local Council's Community Panel.

Adopting eco friendly habits is easier taken one small step at a time.  Lots of small changes add up to a big difference.

It doesn't sound very glamorous, but I've joined my local councils community panel, meaning I get sent surveys to fill in to give my opinions on various issues.

You might be wondering how this amounts to an eco friendly change, so I'll explain.  

I fill my surveys with as many eco friendly, people friendly, or any other lefty answers I can think of.  Even though my local council is Labour,  my county has a conservative MP and the UK has a tory central government. I think it's important to take any opportunity to make politically left voices heard. 

A quick internet search will tell you if your local council has a community panel, and how to join it.  Are you part of yours?

Luminarium.

Last week I had a chance to visit a luminarium.

It was super fun and pretty and relaxing.

 

There was a real mix of generations wandering, sliding, taking photos and lying on the floor, we all had to take our shoes off and there was ambient music playing.  We had a lovely time!

Have you ever been in a luminarium?

Vegan Life Magazine, Issue 8 September 2015.

Issue 8 of Vegan Life Magazine pinged into my online reader, and it's full of lovely, vegan stuff!

I can't appreciate the strong focus on tofu this month, as I'm allergic/intolerant to soya, but I definitely appreciated reading the Vegan news section.  Apparently Ben & Jerry's are developing a vegan icecream!  I love the news that the Vegan Society have approved IKEA's veggie balls (I've already given them my seal of approval!). 

There are lots of delicious recipes this month, including this Mexican casserole, yum!

There are lots of tips and recipes for jams and preserves too.  I can't wait for my home grown tomatoes to ripen so I can try out the roasted tomato preserve! 

There's a really interesting article about regrowing veg from the bits you were going to throw in the compost bin.

I loved these ideas about politics and veganism.

You can subscribe to Vegan Life on paper or digitally.  There's also a handy app for digital subscriptions. 

Disclosure - I have been provided with a free digital subscription to Vegan Life Magazine in return for reviewing this publication.  I have my own little page in the bloggers section on their lovely website.  All opinions are, of course, my own.

 

All images belong to Vegan Life Magazine.

 

Easy Green Actions, September 2015.

Here's my round up of this month interesting eco articles and online actions,

Send a letter supporting the Navitus Bay wind farm, using Friends of the Earth's online form.

Sign Sum of Us' petition asking for the withdrawal of neonicotinoids that kill bees and birds.

The government loves fracking, sign Friends of the Earth's petition to keep the decision to frack or not in local democracies, not national government.  While you're at it, ask Barclays to stop planned fracking too.

Do you ever think about soil?  The Soil Association thinks you should be.

Sign this petition against a 3rd runway at Heathrow airport.

The RSPB has lots of ideas for giving nature a home in your garden.

Sign Greenpeace's petition to save the arctic and sign up for updates on how to stop fracking.

I think we should all show our local trees some love.

And don't forget to sign up for Zero Waste Week!