No brainer...

Just add lard..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Let me see -

• £2.50 for a half coconut filled with bird seed and fat from the garden centre (seems to be about the going rate...)

      Or 

• 59p for a block of lard to make several refills and a few pence worth of bird seed 

Just call me Scrooge, but I think I'll be refilling the old one thanks!

[About the photo: Macro shot obviously, but I'm playing around with my manual remote flashguns. One flash positioned behind the black background pointing at the ceiling to provide the bounced fill light, and a second one on low power coming in from the left to add just a little illumination to the lard as I pour it.]

Seeds of optimism...

Seeds of optimism..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

November... Possibly not the best time to be planting things (my garlic aside...). But these were described as winter lettuces, suitable for unheated greenhouses or cold frames, so I thought I'd give them a go. They're currently in seedling trays on our window ledge, but I'll try some of them outside once they're a bit bigger. I suspect the hole in roof of the greenhouse might mean its a bit chilly for them - I really need to get it repaired!

But at least the lettuces are doing better than the carrots. Again, meant to be planted out in October / November and harvested in spring. Have planted some in the raised bed, some in a pot in the greenhouse, and some on the window ledge - no signs of life yet...

[About the photo - a macro shot (the seedlings are only a couple of cm tall at the moment!) lit by a remote flash off to one side, with a baffle to stop the flash lighting the black background. Not completely happy with it - feels a little dark and the depth of field isn't quite enough. Might re-shoot when they get a bit bigger.]

Grass... Never where you want it...

The grass is always greener..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

So I've paid out heaven knows how much to turf over parts of the lawn that had been overgrown by moss, or killed by the expanding borders... But you drop some bird seed down some cracks in your pavement, and look what happens!

Next time I'm letting William help me re-fill the bird feeders I'll have to be more careful. Still, its an interesting lesson for him as he can actually see the seed, the roots and the plant...

[About the photo: another 105mm macro shot. Hardest part was getting the depth of field I wanted so all the seeds were in focus - my shutter speed was dropping and I ended up getting the tripod out. Luckily the Manfrotto tripod I use can get down really low!]

Leylandii - Before and After

Leylandii - before and after...

Okay, I've learned something this morning... We had our Leylandii conifers trimmed this weekend - trying to get them back into some sort of shape after a couple of years neglect (see before and after shots).  

Aside from the more commonly known legal aspects (they grow up to a metre a year, and in 2005 were allegedly responsible for a large proportion of over 17,000 people being at loggerheads over high hedges), the history of the plant is fascinating and did you know it has a vague link back to Crystal Palace?

In the 1840s, the Leyland family rebuilt and redesigned the gardens at Leighton Hall in Wales. The gardener planted two trees close together that would normally be found hundreds of miles apart -Monterey Cypress from California and Alaskan Cypress.  In 1888 hybrid cross was discovered - the female cones of Nootka Cypress were fertilised by pollen from Monterey Cypress.  The result was the Leylandii Cyprus. There are several varieties, but as they're all infertile, all of the trees are a result of cuttings that can be traced back to those original plants. 

The link to Crystal Palace? The gardener that laid out the gardens at Leighton Hall was Edward Kemp - a student of Sir Joseph Paxton.  Paxton was of course the creator of the Crystal Palace, originally built in Hyde Park in 1851 but later moved to the area of South London that is still known as Crystal Palace. 

Okay, I accept its a bit or a tenuous link!  

A good start [Part 2]...

William and his carrots!

This was shot in late August this year.  Early in the year I'd found a large pot (you can see it behind William) hidden in the shed, and thought it would be fun to see what we could do with it. I can't actually remember where we got the carrot seeds from but William helped me plant them and we watched them grow.

I honestly had no idea that they would be so successful, and our little gardener was very impressed when he pulled them up for me!

We were even more impressed when he ate them with dinner that evening!  :-)

New Shoots...

Garlic in the snow, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

This shows how little I know... I knew garlic needed to go in before winter, as bulbs that go through the cold spell are bigger than those planted in spring. But for some reason I thought they'd be like flower bulbs, and lie dormant until spring - so I got a bit of a shock when I went to check how my raised bed had coped with the light dusting of snow last night and found this...

[About the photo: a quick shot with the macro lens whilst William was exploring the snow.  I'm not entirely happy with the depth of field - may need to reshoot on a tripod so I can get a narrower aperture...]

A good start...

Success!, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

We're not going to be starting completely from scratch in 2013 - we've had a few successes this year - and one of them has been the cherry tomatoes. We did pretty much nothing to sort out the greenhouse - just bunged a few seeds in pots and waited to see what happened.

The end result was more tomatoes than we could eat - next year I need to think in advance about what I'm going to do with them - any recipe suggestions?

[About the photo: shot with my trusty Sigma 105mm F2.8 Macro. One of the lenses I've bought - lacks the hypersonic focusing and image stabilisation of the Nikkor equivalent, but its pin sharp and was half the price... The lovely dynamic green background is a pot of chives shot with a wide aperture to throw it nicely out of focus.]

Gardener's Friend

Gardener's Friend, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

This little coal tit kept me company as I mowed the lawn this morning. Of course, the fresh bird seed on the feeder might have had something to do with it, but even then I managed to get within a couple of feet of him to get this shot...

Developments...

The new raised bed

Exciting news - the vegetable patch is getting there!  With a great deal of help from my dad, I've got the raised bed built, and since this picture was taken I've topped up the compost level, constructed some netting over the top (don't want it being used as a cat litter tray!) and got some garlic bulbs planted so they can over-winter!  

Longer term we're hoping to get this bit of the garden landscaped, but in the mean time I'm hoping to get some vegetables out of it. Now I just need to decide what I'm going to plant in the spring!  Any suggestions?

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

Squabbling Starlings, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

One of the things I love about the garden is the bird life - indeed, one of the first things we bought for the garden was a decent bird feeder.  It just happens to be positioned so that when you take from the patio door you get a nice out of focus green background...

Its led us to at least one dilemma though - our cats have always been house cats (I used to say "flat cats" because we lived in a flat, but people used to ask what squished them...) and we had planned to let them out following the move.  But it doesn't feel right to encourage the birds and then let the cats at them.

This is one of the coconut feeders that William chose from the garden centre last weekend.  Seems to mainly attract Starlings but never mind. My main problem is that it keeps reminding me of that scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail...

Here you go... Youtube

[About the photo: Less than ideal as its a dull day and I was shooting with my old D80 which doesn't have particularly good high ISO performance. But the 70-300mm on my D80 gives me an effective focal length of 450mm which is great for getting into the action]

"But then of course, African swallows are non-migratory, so they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway..."

Lighting up the garden

Lighting up the garden, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

A quick product review - Solar Garden Lights by Gardman

Hmmm, not bad.  Four solar lights for £5.  They look pretty good in the brushed steel look that's so common these days.  The solar cell and light sensor is built into the top with no cracks for water to seep into. So far they've been subjected to one of the wettest periods on record for September and they seem to have survived.

Even on a dull wet day they charged up enough to come on around 7pm and they were still on when we got up for work at 6am the next day. The light isn't particularly bright, but that's not really the idea.  They don't screw together as well as I would quite like and I'm not sure they'll survive repeated run ins with a toddler, but we'll see.

But for £1.25 each I'm quite impressed.  Not sure I'd have paid £14.95 for four (the advertised retail price) for them, but for a fiver they make a nice addition to the garden.

[About the photo: a long exposure tripod shot, slightly over exposed.  Its a rainy night and the low lying clouds are reflecting the orange street lamps giving my something of a white balance problem here!]

The real beginning (2)

William had just turned one and I decided it might be fun for him to watch something grow.  I'm not sure who bought us the yellow pot with smiley tomatoes on it, but I decided to plant the seeds and see what happened.

Bear in mind we lived in a flat with no garden.  And that at the time I didn't know that not all tomatoes grow on small perfectly formed bushes!  These were a cordon variety and quickly took over the window in our lounge.  But William loved watering them, and we did get some fruit off them in the end.

Problem was, I think William thought by this stage that they were a member of the family, and refused to eat them... But I'd certainly got the bug for growing veg!

The real beginning (1)

Crystal Palace Sunset, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

In the beginning... No garden for me, just a flat in South London with a shared patch of grass and a contract gardener who pruned the rose bush next to the garages. I never did get around to suggesting we did anything with it.

Instead, I found myself getting involved with Crystal Palace Park. We'd lived near it for years, and I fell in love with its decaying glamour, its Italian terraces, its Greek Statues, its Sphinx, its dinosaurs. Its a unique place.

But my involvement in the Friends of the park group was frustrating. Lovely people, but meetings about the future of the park were mired in past disagreements, and all the time I felt there was something more we could be doing. So in the end I stopped going to the meetings and started organising some volunteers.

We met in the park and got our hands dirty! Pulling up brambles, planting bulbs, pruning trees, painting fences, laying paths. We weren't meeting politicians or arguing about future strategy, but we could certainly turn to our handiwork and say, "I did that".

[About the photo: Shot at f/22 to get a nice sunburst. Even though I'd stripped off all the filters, I still got a bit of unwanted lens flare that I may get around to editing out at some stage.  Hardest part was getting the position right so the sunburst was where I wanted it]

Looking for inspiration...

Seaton Delaval Hall, National Trust, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Its wet and windy up here in Northumberland. The patch of ground I'd earmarked as a potential vegetable patch has turned out to be full of roots for the nearby conifer trees, so a bit of a rethink is needed (am thinking some large pots to form a raised bed that I can easily move when we eventually get the garden done...)

But in the mean time, here's some lovely inspiration from the cut-flower garden at Seaton Delaval Hall, our local National Trust Property. I'm not sure I have the patience for flowers, growing vegetables feels much more practical, but the colours on display here are fantastic and its tempting to try... Anyone know what its called?!

Bordering on the ridiculous...

Bordering on the ridiculous..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr

This is one of the borders that are in such a state... Its been fun watching stuff pop up, flower and then die back over the summer but they're in a real state and we need to think what we want to do with them longer term.  Aside from the maintenance time they require, they're just too big for the garden and they really make the lawn feel small.

They're also doing quite a lot of damage to the lawn.  With mum's help we trimmed the borders back to the retaining walls and discovered that they'd completely trashed the lawn underneath - the only thing growing was moss. I had some turf left over some work on the front garden so all the moss has come up and we'll see if the turf takes...

On the bright side, they do protect the greenhouse from stray footballs and our toddler!

Hedging my bets...

Hedging my bets...
a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Okay, I admit, I just wanted to use that title!

With the garden comes its boundaries, and it this case, some massive conifers out back and a beech hedge out front.  This is the Cotoneaster Franchetii (I think!) hedge under the front window.

The previous owners were kind enough to leave us a set of electric hedge trimmers, and I'm now beginning to understand why... I swear if you watch the cotoneaster long enough you'll see it grow, its that quick.  The big beech hedge is slower, but trimming it with electric trimmers at the top of a step ladder is NOT my idea of fun!  And as for the conifers, I think we'll be paying for someone to sort them out for us...

[About the photo - another close up macro shot with my trusty 105mm Sigma lens. Shooting wide open (f/3.3 at this close range) to throw the beech hedge in the background completely out of focus.]

Lili, Lili, Lili! (*)

Lily, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

One of the joys of acquiring an established garden is waiting to see what grows.  When we looked around the house in late September last year we either didn't notice these Lilies in a pot in the corner, or they'd died off.  Either way, its been great to watch them grow this year and wonder what they'd flower into! 

We've had similar experiences with the rest of the garden - splashes of colour developing unexpectedly all over the borders.  The borders are still a mess (more on that another day) but in the mean time we're just watching and making a note of what's there rather than diving in redeveloping...

[About the photo - shooting close-up with a macro lens, a tripod was essential for the depth of field I wanted.  I dropped a white Lastolite background in behind the plant to give me the white-on-white effect I was looking for.  With hindsight, white-on-black would have had more punch, but would lack the sense of softness that I feel this one has]

(* Bonus points for those getting the Blazin' Saddles reference!)

In the beginning...

In the beginning..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

... Was a mess...

Ah the joys of taking over an established garden and trying to make it your own.  We moved out of London about 6 months ago and the garden was one of the main attractions to the house we bought, but it needs a lot of work.

This summer I've limited myself to growing a few cherry tomatoes in the old greenhouse as we slowly get the rest of the house sorted, but I'm starting to make plans for the garden.  I've just about cleared the plot to the left of the greenhouse and the plan is for a small vegetable patch although I've not yet decided what to grow. The green house needs a good clean, a pane of glass replacing (mainly to stop the snails getting in), reflooring, new shelving.... But it'll do for now.

The aim of this blog is to cover the trials and tribulations of trying to tame the garden over the coming year and get a few things to grow where I want them to!