A small flock of waxwings in the garden briefly this afternoon
Waxwings and other birds this weekend
Monthly Archives: January 2016
Coppicing
Feeling tired but good having worked hard for several hours with my bow saw and axe coppicing this Hazel. A surprising amount of wood on a tree like this. It was probably 15 years ago I did this last… The green bush below the Hazel is a box (Buxus) which is probably 25 years old!
Added a few more pictures today, worked about an hour sorting the wood into different piles: firewood, tops for peas to climb into, long runner bean stakes and the rest which will be piled up in the garden for wildlife…. It always amazes me how little effort it is in my relatively cold climate to cut enough wood by hand for firewood…
Garden and views 30th-31st January 2016
Hungry gap sprouts
I moved 10 buckets of roots and stratifying seeds of edible perennials for sprouting and eating before the spring greens come on tap…filling the hungry gap. These have all been outside exposed to the cold since November.
Bear Spinach comes out of hibernation
Bear Spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides)?
Well, my friend William Whitson in Washington State recently reported “I finally had a couple of plants withstand our typical 2.5m of rain winters. They started sprouting again in January. Then a bear dug them up and ate them. No kidding.” ;)
Hence, I’ve renamed it Bear Spinach….Bears in its homeland in the Caucasus surely feast on it too in the spring. Ramsons or Allium ursinum is known as Bärlauch or bear onion in German as bears are known to eat it in spring and if you eat ramsons you’ll become as strong as a bear. I’m sure Hablitzia has the same effect!
Anyway, my plant reappeared from under deep snow this week and the roots are probably fully frozen as a result of the previous very cold, dry and snowless period. It clearly doesn’t mind this treatment :)
A Fantastic February Salad
In the latest edition of Danish magazine Praktisk Økologi, there’s an article “En fantastisk februarsalat” (“a fantastic february salad”) written by Naturplanteskolen’s Aiah Noack after a visit to my place in February 2015 :)
Redpolls
This redpoll also allowed me to get quite close. This is one of a flock of 30-40 in the garden today together with 10 siskins / grønnsisik.
Treecreeper
This treecreeper has been hanging about the bird feeder…I suspect it’s spending the night in with the food :-)
Quite tame allowing me to get quite close…
Afternoon sun
The mountains looked beautiful this afternoon, “bathing” in the afternoon sun :)
Mass Hablitzia germination for Xmas
In mild but cool weather during early winter the last couple of years, Hablitzia has germinated en masse around my mother plant next to my house. These all died in later cold weather last winter. When mass germination happened around Xmas 2015, I therefore decided to rescue them by potting up and bringing them in to a cool room. It was just in time as it froze solid just after with very low temperatures since and now deep snow…here they are today (it’s been between 0 and 8C where they are growing). 