Friday, May 08, 2009

Bullfinches and vetch mulch

I am quite proud of the above post title - slightly reminiscent of Shakespeare's "Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore", though I was not, of course, planning to emulate the sound of breaking surf.

Some have thought though that Shakespeare was acknowledging Ovid who in Metamorphosis XV wrote:

sed ut unda inpellitur urgeturque prior veniente urgetque priorem

Anyway, enough of that. The other day a male bullfinch perched by Wbx and, I am sure, flew over the window box.

20090505 South View WBX 002

A somewhat misty picture as it was taken through our not-recently-cleaned sitting room window.

These beautiful little birds pass through our garden once or twice a year searching for seeds and buds. Sadly they are now of the RSPB's Red List - the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action. To quote from Shakespeare's sonnets once again:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die

So, on to the second part of my title, the vetch mulch. This is simply that I took the quarter pound of hairy tare I gathered from Wbx the other day, dried it and crumbled it as a light mulch over the upper surface of the box, brushing it down to soil level between the plants. By such actions I hope to build up the shrinking soil a bit, or at least to stop it declining so rapidly.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Management decision

The hairy tare of last year has seeded itself quite liberally and over the last few weeks and has been growing with great vigour.  It rapidly smothers other plants and its weight is so great that it pulls them down to the ground.

 20090502 WBX   Hairy tare 005

So, I decided to remove the plants and give more space for the other things to develop.  The results are depicted below.

20090502 WBX - Hairy tare 044

I kept the tare arisings and weighed them indoors: 100gm (approx. 4 oz).  I have put it out to dry as hay and may then crumble it up to return to WBX.