It’s not easy being a Wwoofer at my place as this spring when I discovered two of my prize dandelions had been weeded ;) She was devastated when I told her, reassuring her that she probably hadn’t managed to get all the root out and that it would come back in due course..and in any case I had saved seed of both (which I promptly sowed again). Well, dear Wwoofer, “Pissenlit Coeur Plein Ameliore” (originally bought in a French supermarket about 18 years ago) has returned :)
Red-back in the garden? Well, it has a red back but it’s Enoplognatha ovata (Candystripe spider / rødstripet kule-edderkopp) and it’s not at all dangerous!!
It seems it’s the first time this species has been registered in my county!
Hablitzia roots have an astonishing number of shoots waiting to grow if you cut them down…I like to think that this is an adaptation to human grazing pressure, so that we can repeatedly harvest without killing the plants ;)
Root cuttings work to quickly multiply plants , just ensure you use a sharp knife and have at least one shoot on each root slice! See the pictures!
Congratulations to my dear Mum and Dad on their 66th wedding anniversary today!!
And 66 has a special significance in my family, as heard at 0:58 in this video, which is even older… https://www.youtube.com/
Breakfast in the garden, and a Siberian Nutcracker landed in the tall spruce tree, followed by a greenfinch…
Today is forecast to be the year’s warmest, 27C, already close to 20C at 7am!
Scorzonera hispanica in full flower at the moment!! The flowers are good in salads…
Ligularia japonica flowering for the first time in the garden and an Admiral checked it out :)
Eaten in Japan, I haven’t tried it yet…
Working in the garden today and I was surprised by two swifts flying low behind the house and one entered an old starling box on the outhouse….
I’ve been trying to attract swifts (tårnseiler) for years to the house and have one swift box higher on the main house, but they chose this instead!
In the video you can hear the bird “screaming” quietly and another sound….could this be chicks?..strange I haven’t noticed this before, but I’ve been away a lot and I have seen two birds flying low in the same area a couple of times this summer (latest last weekend) and also last summer on several occasions (presumably prospecting). After the one bird left I could hear noises in the nest (I didn’t see both birds enter the box)
