Uninvited Guests (More than a grain of truth edition...)

An uninvited Guest..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

One of the joys about having a bird feeder full of seed in the garden is that you really do get some interesting stuff growing around it... This looks like a cereal crop of sorts?

Regardless, its gone, took the strimmer to it in an attempt to get the lawn under control. The annoying thing is that thanks to the birds I have grass growing everywhere I don't want it, but I've had to put grass seed down in a couple of other patches to repair the lawn! If only the birds could aim a bit better! :-)

Name this plant...

Name this plant..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Okay, bonus points for anyone who can name this plant.... Its a shrub with some rather distinctive flowers. Any suggestions?

Update: Thanks to everyone on Facebook and Flickr who have identified it as Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding Hearts). Seems obvious now I know!  :-)

First Crop of the year!

First Crop of the year!, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Maybe its because the cover of one of my gardening books has radishes on the front of it, or maybe its because they're bright pink (William's favourite colour) but it just feels kind of appropriate that the first crop of the year has been some delicious radishes. These are some of the ones we had in a pot in the greenhouse - the ones in the raised bed are taking a bit longer, but then they are dealing with the disgusting weather we're having at the moment - I'm just surprised they haven't drowned!

[About the photo - window light and a bit of white card as a background. About as simple as it gets really]

Herbs...

Chives, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Anyone know any good recipes that use coriander?!

The chives are doing nicely - after commenting to my mum that hers were budding, I came home to find mine were as well!

The parsley has gone ballistic, the basil is getting there, but I really need to find some recipes to involving coriander as I have way too much of the stuff!

Univited guests - Sticky Weed

Sticky Weed, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

This is Galium Aparine - or to give it its more common name - Sticky Weed. Or indeed, as William calls it - just plain WEED! Shouted loudly whenever he spots it in the garden after I introduced him to it last year. And by introduced it, I of course mean pulling some up and sticking it to his back when he wasn't looking...

It may have been used to stuff mattresses in medieval times, it may be used in a tea to promote weight loss and soothe irritations of the urinary tract, but I'm still pulling the blasted stuff up as soon as I spot it to try and get it under control...

[About the photo - another macro shot with the 105mm, hand held at f/5.6. May reshoot this against a better background - I needed more depth of field on the plant but kept getting unwanted background detail...]

Uninvited Guests... (Spores for thought edition...)

Uninvited Guests..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

I'd planned to do a series about weeds over the summer - I'm fascinated about why some plants are considered weeds and others aren't. But I thought I'd start a little bit early when I found these two in the carrot pot in the greenhouse...

Continuing the theme...

Almost redundant..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

...of punchy black and white images....

One of the things we looked forward to when we swapped the flat for a house with a garden was being able to do washing and not having it drying around the flat for ages - we'd actually be able to use the washing line...

Think we'd forgotten about the North-East weather - the pegs are almost redundant but our new tumble drier gets a lot of use!

[About the photo - I went through a long period a few years back of shooting everything against a black velvet background - portraits, flowers, kids toys, the works. I like to think I have a bit more variety these days though! But this one really shows to me the importance of light to a picture - in this case the strong morning sunlight that's making the peg and the line glow - the background isn't actually black (you can just make out the greenhouse) but the light gives the scene a huge amount of contrast...]