Excuse me whilst I try to remain upright. No, I haven’t drunk too much. But is it just a *tad* windy out there…I know this because despite being cocooned inside my house, the windows are madly rattling and I can hear a great gale tunnelling down the side of the house. Hopefully it’ll reside by tomorrow. Not so much for my sake but because I know the chickens hate it more than they dislike rain.
Today I managed to do a little bit of work outside. Although it was cloudy and grey this morning (no surprises there, sadly), the sun managed to claw it’s way from behind the clouds for a brief couple of hours this afternoon. Seizing this opportunity to not be rained on/blown over/frozen/disappear in fog I decided to grab my gardening gloves, grab a few gardening tools and give my new spotty wellies a debut.
I’ve got a major job on my hands you see. Large swathes of the Smallest Smallholding borders were taken over by nettles last summer. And I was a bit lazy (and otherwise engaged at the time) to do anything about it. However, now that I can get a fork more than an inch into the ground I thought it best that I actually started on this complete and utterly laborious task. To me, nettles grow in ‘hubs’ that spread out to create nettle cities and nettle networks. Which makes them a BIG PAIN IN THE BUM. Because I love wildlife and want to leave a few nettles in every year, inevitably they take liberties and spread, leaving me with a mammoth job to clear them back every year.
I knew my sunshine time was limited, so I just decided to clear the area under the fruit trees. This is one of two mini woodland garden areas that I’m creating. I’m trying to plant native flora (plants are usually very cheap to pick up from my local nursery) that have been scattered inbetween some old logs that I’ve placed under the trees. The logs are very slowly decaying, and with many holes, nooks and crannies I’m allowing them to act as super-luxurious living accommodation for a whole host of creepy crawlies.
So far for my woodland planting scheme I’ve got the likes of periwinkle, forget-me-nots, oxlip, primoses, lesser celandine, meadow buttercup and snowdrops.
I want to add any or all of the following:
- wild garlic
- dog violets
- british bluebells (we have some of these over by the hedge, but I think I’ll probably buy in some more)
- wood anenome (although I’m sure I planted some anenomes last year?)
- ragged robin (again, sure I recognise this name from last year…?!)
- musk mallow (we may have this elsewhere)
If you have any other suggestions I’d love to hear them. The woodland areas are VERY small - we’re talking only a few metres squared, but still important nonetheless. I’ll blog more about this as it develops as I believe it’s really important that all gardens, smallholdings or farms should have a little nature reserve of their own. This particular ‘woodland area’ is located right by the greenhouse and the veg plots; the idea is that I’ll have a more of a fighting chance to have real ‘natural’ pest control to hand!
So…once this is done (really not looking forward to the nettle clearance. Let’s face it, who *really* enjoys that kind of work?) the next big job is to clean the greenhouse ready for spring. I also need to sort the veg plots out as they’re looking pretty sorry for themselves. More like weedy bare patches than fertile plots. Hmmm.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Our house is exactly the same with the wind
January 19th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Its wonderful to have an area for wildlife. When my parents bought their property 16 years ago it was just an open hay field, and they have slowly added gardens and trees around their house and other parts of the property. Its amazing how the wildlife population grows with each year as there is more plants for them to explore.
January 19th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
My whole garden is for the wildlife at the mo! WE topped some trees 18 months ago and haven’t got round to shredding the branches. WE’ve had thrushes and blackbirds and wren’s nesting in there. I haven’t seen any hedgehog’s this year, but a fox tried to make a den in the branches (it’s quite a large area!). And the robbin is back since we got the hens!
Hope yours goes well. We have a budlhia and a Hebe, that attract the bees, we have 3 types living in the garde.
January 19th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Nettles are great for people to eat too!
Last summer I had my first go at freezing them, before we’ve always had them ‘fresh’, pick the younger leaves and use them in stir-fries or soups.
To freeze them I picked big bags full of the younger leaves or the tops, washed them, wizzed them up in a blender and put them in ice cude trays to freeze and them in freezer bags. We just kept adding them to whatever we were cooking.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
The woodland area sounds delightful - I hope you’ll take and post pictures on progress! Nettles are indeed a pain to clear but, as you say, good to have in moderation. I’ve thought about ‘plunge potting’ them, i.e. putting a few in a large plastic pot filled with earth and sinking into the ground so it looks like they’re growing ‘naturally’ but can’t do their dastardly spreading. Not sure how successful it will be. I’m doing the same with lemon balm and mint to curtail their spread too.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
We’ve got eleven acres of mixed deciduous woodland sloping down into the valley & with a little river running through the bottom of it. As you can imagine, it’s a haven for all sorts of wild flora & fauna.
My favourite times are early Spring, when the wood anemones come out - acres of snowy white carpeting the ground; & when the bluebells are in flower. Apart from the stunning sapphire flowers the scent on the warm wind is amazing, the hyacinth-like perfume wafting up even as far as the stables, a full field distant.
With the music of the water bubbling & chuckling over the stones, it’s a wonderful place to sit & dream under the shady green canopy of summer leaves, too; silent but for the sounds of nature….the magic of the woodland.
Incidentally it’s a place of mystery, too….local legend has it that the gateway to the ancient Otherword is down there, somewhere. There is an old, ruined cottage at the edge of the wood & allegedly there’s a Roman kiln in the (now inaccessible) part; but other than the Wild Road (an ancient drovers’ trackway which is visible for literally only hours each year, as the snows melt) I’ve not stumbled across any strange dimensions so far - thank goodness!
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Sounds like it will be lovely. We have a small wood and you have given me some inspiration to get in there and maybe start to do a bit of planting.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Do What You Love: Absolutely - I can’t believe how much has changed in the space of just a couple of years. You get the right plants in, a bit of water and WHAM! EVerybody’s moving in!
Laura: Doesn’t it drive you mad? Ah well - all part of the rustic charm I guess!
Anna: Our robin is so naughty that (s)he sits on the hen’s corn food bowl whilst they’re eating! We also have loads of branches waiting to be shred; sparrows love zipping in and out. Almost feel bad about getting rid of them…
Poppy: I haven’t braved the nettle soup/tea yet. I don’t know why! Maybe I’ll try it this year…
Thursday: GREAT idea about plunge potting, maybe I’ll try that? And I will definitely be taking pictures. At the moment it’s mostly bare ground with a little periwinkle and some forget-me-nots coming through. But hopefully in a few weeks that’ll have changed…
Jo: How lucky are you. And I love the local legend, almost gets me thinking about writing a children’s story. I wrote a similar thing when I was about 14 about a vortex in a woodland area…spo0o0ooky!
MrDirtyBoots: Glad to have given you inspiration. I love getting comments and feedback, especially when it’s given someone ideas and gets them keen to have a go themselves! Let me know how you get on.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Hi, I came on your site as I have just bought a cottage with a garden, stream & a little area of woodland only about 50 ft sq. There are trees around the edge and mainly clear in the middle. Im not sure what to do with it, I just love being in it, but would like it to be more. Any ideas. Please.