Monday 17 May 2010

Saturday: My box is full of tits!

Ok, before I get going, really I should explain the post title! Yes, that's right kids, there is a family of Great tits nesting in one of the boxes fixed to my shed. How exciting! I was getting some water into a can from the waterbutts and I heard some tweeting above my head. Giddy, I decided to sit a little way off and wait to see which flavour parent bird would come to the box. Turns out Great tits are in residence. Lovely little birds. I'm made up to have a fledgling family living on my plot. I took this picture of the adult feeding the squeaking babies, but only had my snappy camera so the zoom's not great.

I've been a bit quiet the last couple of weeks as I've had visitors, so not a lot of lottie time had. The bank holiday weekend my parents and older brother came to visit. We had a lovely time exploring locally - walking from my flat around the local countryside, as well as driving out and about visiting places. We even had a bluebell walk. The weekend after that my aunt & uncle came to visit. On the very wet & bitterly windy Saturday we went to the Malvern Spring Show. I got carried away and bought some plants and took oodles of photos of things that caught my eye :)

So, anyway, back to this weekend just gone. Saturday, as this is what this post is about. I went to buy some compost to pot more seeds & strained my back restraining a runaway trolley full of growbags. Not good! The seeds I've already sown are looking a bit sorry for themselves in the main. I think alot of it is due to Mr Slug & Mrs Snail, but probably the cold too. This is sum total of my propagation so far - pathetic really!


Anyway, I got lured to Homebase's 15% off day and bought a few bits. Um, and kinda bought a lawnmower! It is the same model as I've used before but now I have my own and don't have to struggle to get it in the car boot and lug it across 2 counties each time I want to use it! Alas, it is currently still on a palette somewhere in the warehouse, but I got it on the 15% discount. I am sure it will earn its keep :) I also bought a little patio appletree. It only grows 2m x 2m so will be tidy on't lottie. I've put it in the centre of my new mini-beds, road end. I like the name too - 'Patio Sophia'.


My aunt had brought me lots of seedlings she'd progagated, much more successfully than me so far! I planted out the cosmos at the road end, as they were about right to go in the ground. They should look pretty as I pull up when they're in flower. They will easily fill the space I popped them into. I also divided up the big road end bed, with string, into 9 sections, to make things less daunting.


Finally I tackled the nightmare that is my strawberry bed. Weeding. A lot of weeding! Here's the before...


...and after. I have only done 1/3 so far :(


All the photos are a bit orange, probably as it was quite late in the day when I took them.

I will post about Sunday's antics asap :)

5 comments:

Jo said...

It's lovely to have birds nesting. I think we've got blackbirds in our garden again this year. I sorted my strawberry bed out at the start of the season, but when I went to the allotment at the weekend it looks like the frost has got to the flowers. There's more to come though, so I hope that all's not lost.

Kella said...

Everything is looking good and how cool about the great tits, we also a pair nesting in our garden.

My propogation this year has also not been good ata ll and I am having to buy in plants to fill the gaps.

Laura Sparling said...

Love the post title! Ha!

What a cute little tree. Looks like the allotment is coming along really well. :o)

Laura x

Paul and Melanie said...

It's all looking great! Glad to see you're still blogging, I've not been around the blog'sphere for a year so good to catch up with how you've done!

That strawberry bed looks a lot like mine does, I'm now thinking I should give it a good going over too.... lol

Stephanie from GardenTherapy.ca said...

Hillarous title! We have Bushtits here which give non-birders a chuckle.