Tag Archives: garden

May 06 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The avocado tree

Saturday 4th May 2024, 11.55am (day 4,636)

Avocados, 4/5/24

For various reasons St Helena is no agricultural paradise. Some types of fresh fruit and veg can be picked up fairly easily (tomatoes are currently easy to find, for example) but others are never seen. Potatoes, particularly. Ask for potatoes in a shop and you will either be laughed at or, as happened to me once, the shopkeeper will mutter, under his breath, “try me on Monday”, with a wink, as if you’ve asked for cocaine.

However, these beauties are currently growing happily on the tree in the courtyard outside my apartment. The landlord told me not to pick them off the tree, and I honestly haven’t. But they will, at some point, fall to the ground…. and at that point I consider them fair game.

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Apr 02 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Plum blossom

Tuesday 2nd April 2024, 2.00pm (day 4,604)

Plum blossom, 2/4/24

I forget exactly how much our plum tree produced last year but it was at least 20kg (or more than 44 pounds): its all-time record for a single harvest. It won’t do this again in 2024, simply because it never does have two glut years in a row. But the blossom’s out, at least.

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Mar 19 2024
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Daily Post, Landscape

Woburn Sands

Saturday 16th March 2024, 11.05am (day 4,587)

Woburn Sands, 16/3/24

Among the activities booked in for this weekend in Milton Keynes was another County Top walk, which was a perfectly OK walk to do but turned out to be not all that exciting photographically. However, I quite like this one, if only for the way it seems to head back in stages through the landscape, starting with the allotments occupied by a mysterious single figure. This is the village of Woburn Sands, where I finished the walk: note that whatever it is named for, it’s not a beach — we are nowhere near the sea here.

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Jan 19 2024
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Usual garden companion

Thursday 18th January 2024, 12.20pm (day 4,529)

Garden robin, 18/1/24

My ability to summon a robin now does not even need to involve any digging. Just go and sit down in the garden for five minutes and he turns up anyway, just to check things out. With largely frozen soil at the moment, though, I guess he’s probably hungry. This may well be the same bird as depicted here or here: the photos are all taken in the same place (our allotment) and robins are territorial beasts.

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Jan 11 2024
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Urban scene

In the beer garden

Wednesday 10th January 2023, 4.55pm (day 4,521)

White Swan garden, 10/1/24

Those of us in exile in the beer garden must have our reasons…. perhaps just misanthropy, in my case. The two women doubtless have their own thoughts on this. But the weather was OK so why not? Is that even a bit of light in the evening sky? I believe so. 

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Nov 04 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Worm race

Friday 3rd November 2023, 1.50pm (day 4,453)

Worm race, 3/11/23

On opening the lid of the allotment’s compost barrel this afternoon a whole nest of earthworms was revealed, some four feet up. These two decided they would take the opportunity to return to ground level. The one on the right had a clear head start but the other was catching up. If I was a gambling man…. but instead, I like their translucency. And at least the sun was shining for a little while today, the first sight of it for a few days.

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Oct 17 2023
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Roof garden dummies

Monday 16th October 2023, 12.40pm (day 4,435)

Roof garden dummies, 16/10/23

Seeing as the garden in question is on the roof of Big Hands, the micro-gig venue round the corner from my office — and no, I’ve never noticed them before — perhaps Roof Garden Dummies is to be the name of some emergent punk/student band, to be appearing (possibly) on a digital feed near you at some point in the second half of this decade. If I was in The Zone, I might consider founding them myself. But possibly Kraftwerk already did it.

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Oct 07 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Unbothered, as usual

Friday 6th October 2023, 10.30am (day 4,425)

Bold robin, 6/10/23

There is a reason why robins have been depicted on here so often, and certainly more than any other species of small bird (ducks and pigeons will rival them in the overall rankings). This is their complete lack of fear of humanity. Basically, they have established that they can make us work on their behalf. Dig or (as I did today) strim the garden and one is almost certain to appear to check the work is done and then pick out the insects left behind. There’s a bit of zoom used on this shot, but not much.

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Sep 27 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Paper chillis

Wednesday 27th September 2023, 4.15pm (day 4,416)

Paper chillis, 27/9/23

An upcoming short trip to London aside, I am not going anywhere in the near future: it will be at least February before I go anywhere radically different (meaning, outside the UK). It’s one of those periods where I need to find inspiration near to home. These plants will do for today, however. I don’t know what these actually are but to me they look like little paper chilli lanterns, hence the title of the post. All available for viewing in a window box a few doors down from my place, anyway.

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Sep 25 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

The garden produces

Sunday 24th September 2023, 2.00pm (day 4,413)

Garden. produce, 24/9/23

It’s not just plums…. The apples are doing well this year, as are the leeks, and is that even a couple of beetroot poking up from the soil? Sure is. None of this makes a big dent in the food bill but it’s still satisfying.

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