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...]

Spring is finally here...

A lack of colour..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Its only a month or so late...

We're finally getting some spring weather. William and I have been out in the garden getting a few things planted - the onions seem to have taken well, but no sign yet of the potatoes and carrots. The sunflowers are planted, and the tomato seeds are just coming up. The herbs are also doing well, but that's a subject for a future post...

The dwarf narcissi have been a mixed success. I planted a few varieties in a pattern, thinking I'd get a nice range of colours. But while some are flowering gorgeously, others are only just coming up and the whole thing looks a bit sad really. Will have to pull them up when I get that bit of the lawn re-turfed and try again next year!

[About the photo - macro lens and tripod, with an aperture of f/9 - still not quite happy with the depth of field though...]

A wet day in the garden...

A wet day in the garden..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Well its been rain, snow, rain, snow, wind, snow, wind.... Have barely managed to get out in the garden except to water the few plants in the greenhouse. The chives have been a big surprise, growing Phoenix like from the cut back stumps - I honestly thought they'd had it!

[About the photo - other than a macro lens and a tripod (necessary to get the depth of field I needed) a water sprayer is your friend if you want to do droplet shots! :-) ]

No Thyme like a present...

No Thyme like a present..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

A quick photo of the Thyme that Mum and Dad bought Marie as a contribution to her herb garden while they were out and about on their travels. I have to confess, I thought of the pun/title first then realised I had to take the picture...

Its been grown inside, so we'll be keeping it on the window ledge(*) for a little bit until it warms up out there. I really need to get the broken glass on my greenhouse fixed...

(* assuming our cats don't take a liking to it...)

After the snow

After the snow, a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

I spent a couple of hours in the garden this morning tidying up some of the debris from last year and generally trying to get it ready for Spring. I suspect I'll pay for it with a stiff back tomorrow!

The highlight was definitely finding that the little clump of snowdrops we'd seen from the window was actually a lot larger once I'd cleared back the invasive evergreen that was trying to cover all of the border. Beautiful little flowers and a good sign Spring is on its way! Now to see what other bulbs the previous owner has planted....

[About the photo: shot in the early evening as the strong light earlier would have made correctly exposing a white flower something of a challenge. Low light levels meant a tripod though and waiting for the wind to die down...]

The Great Melt...

The Great Melt..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Well, our lawn resembles a swamp and there's a couple of inches of water flooding my greenhouse, but the snow is finally melting! All it needs now is David Attenborough to pop up and start talking about how the wildlife will return and how the running water heralds the coming of spring! But it did make for a couple of nice ice photos! These two shots are from the remains of the igloo...

The Great Melt..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr 

[About the photos: These are both macro shots with the Sigma 105mm. Handheld because they were really low to the ground, but aperture at f/14 to get enough depth of field on those ice crystals, even though I'd tried to line the key elements up on the same plane of focus. Light wasn't great and a shutter speed of 1/100 meant I needed an ISO of 800...]

Winter weather (part 4...)

Well the weather decided to show that the last bit of snow was just a practice really, and over the weekend we got rather a lot of the stuff.  Thankfully, its yet to turn to ice so the roads aren't too bad, but the pavements aren't much fun!

It did a bit of damage to the garden - I've got another cracked pane of glass in the greenhouse from the weight of snow, the netting protecting my garlic in the raised bed collapsed under the weight, and my strawberry plants are now warming up in the greenhouse!



I also had to dig out the dwarf Narcissi that I planted under the new turf as a spring surprise for the wife, and at one stage I thought we were going to lose some of our solar lights under the snow!  :-)



But from William's perspective, the snow meant we could make something!  He didn't want to build a snowman ("It will melt" was his response to that suggestion - I think he's been traumatised by watching The Snowman and the Snowdog on TV!) but we settled on an igloo, and with the aid of an old washing up bowl to make the bricks, I think we did a pretty good job...



(I will admit though that the roof didn't survive the weight of the new snow overnight!)

Winter weather (part 3...)

Winter weather (part 3...), a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Well, after rain and snow, wind seems appropriate! Our town is on a bit of a hill, and feels like a bit of a wind trap at times. Challenging from a photography perspective - unless you have a serious tornado you usually can't see the wind, only its effects. So here's William's little ladybird windmill being blown around!

[About the photo: Couldn't face going outside, so its a long lens (300mm) shot from the window. 1/30th second exposure was slow enough to get the motion blur I wanted. Of course, 1/30th at 300mm means a tripod is needed...]

Winter weather (part 2...)

Well after rain, snow should be easy!  :-)

I love taking snow shots.  Snowy days in London always used to see me down in Crystal Palace Park with the camera (thanking heavens that London transport is so pathetic that a snowflake on the railway line effectively meant a day off work as I couldn't get to the office...).  Here's one of my favourite shots from back then. The snow can freak out the camera's metering system (it expects gray, it gets white, so it under exposes to make the white look gray) but that can be dealt with.

But taking a shot of it actually snowing was a bit more fun. Main problem was the shutter speed.  Too fast and the snow is white specs - hard to see unless its snowing really hard (it wasn't). Too slow and you just get too many white trails. In the end I settled on a shutter speed of 1/25th second - about the limit of what I could hand hold with my 24mm lens.

In the end, it didn't snow that long and it didn't stick around, much to the relief of my wife!

A snowy day....

Next challenge? Wind!  :-)

Winter weather (part 1...)

It feels like we've had a pretty awful run of weather lately,have barely been able to get out into the garden, let alone do anything.  So here are a few weather photos until it improves and I can get started properly!

Its always hard trying to effectively show weather in a photo unless its something obvious like snow or fog. I'd been pondering how to show it, but then one of the most annoying things about the new house actually came in handy...

This is our security light.  In theory, a passive infrared turns it on when it detects heat.  In reality, its far too sensitive, and just having the heating on can cause the light to be on all night. And of course, when the previous owners fitted it, did they fit a switch inside to control it?  Of course not. Its wired straight into the lighting ring main.  Even masking off part of the IR sensor with tape has made no difference, I dread to think what its doing to my electricity bill.

So all in all, annoying, but it did enable me to capture a shot of the rain the other night...

 Rain, rain and more rain....