Gardening today, heavy duty gardening at that.
Those huge nettles that you see, I see a place for caterpillars, away from my plants.
I also have a huge bright yellow flowered border, that has spread everywhere. I do nothing with them and they grow abundantly, until it rains then they fall all over the path, so much so, people visiting think that the resident has died and the house has been left to nature for years, as in a historic novel.
My compost heap (every home should have one where possible) is starting to do it’s job.
The only downside so far has been having to lift the old piece of carpet from the top of it, when the teabag/compost bag in the house has been full, to empty into it the food waste/teabag insides and eggshells. A source of much humor for neighbours, as I built the frame out of an old cot we had from years back (no pallets available).
For the past six months it has been left, as I’ve moved to the traditional tub compost bin, in the back garden.
I removed the carpet and eh voila! It’s rotted away nicely, even with the wood ash from the burner being mixed in. I’m more amazed since I’ve only attempted to turn it once in a year.
I dug out just one half of the heap, spading it over the anti-cat fence (cats are a huge issue here, they love dumping in my garden) when I’d got half of it right down to the base soil, I had around half a tonne of almost ready compost to rake flat!
After raking it, I pulled over the visquene cover (no-dig, ready for next spring) and cracked on.
So no driving to garden centre, no humping it to and from the car, no waste plastic bags and more importantly, not cost me a single penny, just a bit of time and effort.
For all outdoor, “it’s a bit nippy” jobs, I have my old green fleece. It was given to me in a pile of clothes, when a good friend of one of my good friends, sadly passed away.
The pile of clothing was an assortment you’d get at charity shops, before they all became upmarket and sent their best clobber to posher city centre stores. I spotted the fleece and thought it’ll do nicely for working in and around the house.
Inevitably, when gardening, it attracts things.
Seeds are a favourite, always stuck to it, I just pick them off then bang it in the washer now and again.
Another favourite of course, is insects. To be more precise, spiders!
They absolutely love it for some reason.
So as I’m in and out, I felt something moving on the back of my neck, I scratched it, sadly the spider did not survive.
Then another one down my back, then another one on my waste.
None of these, came even close to my all time best spider encounter, with my pottering fleece.
I’d been “Sorting the garden” as is the phrase most used and had to nip out for something for the garden.
We jumped into the car and set off, when we came to a roundabout and sat in some traffic.
Something was tickling the side of my neck, so asking the better-half if there was something there, she gasped in sheer horror.
There, on the side of my neck, was not only a large spider, with trails of web on my neck, but it had caught a fly and was killing it/wrapping web around it, right there on my neck!
It made me laugh, she was not amused, at all!
Enjoy your meal :O)
P.S. The mill flour I ordered online, was sent out wrong. Instead of a 16kg bag of plain flour, I received a 15kg sack of pizza flour (I didn’t know it existed) *sigh*