January

A fine dusting of snow as dawn cleared the darkness today. A chill night but still moths on the wing.

We have been laid low with chesty coughs and the early-morning air is deemed unsuitable for me to work outside. We work in the afternoon clearing raspberry runners that are attempting to annex the entire fruit bed. I sort through stored apples and bring them to the shed. The dried stems of last year's asparagus are cut and taken away for burning. The surface of the beds is cleared. The larvae of asparagus beetle may overwinter on the dried stems and so are burnt. the cleared ground will make it easier for insectivorous birds and mammals to harvest the grubs before they can transition to adulthood.

Rosa (l) and Jill almost there with the digging...

We have another of our WWOOF volunteers with us for two weeks - Rosa from Catalonia. WWOOF volunteers join families to work on farms and gardens in return for board and lodging. Poor woman - she has joined us during our brief illness that has also coincided with an acceleration of my dad's dementia decline. He has been quite incoherent and most days recently seem to have seen us called on to make use of one service of our great NHS or another. Not only have my energies been lowered in tune with my new Barry White vocal range, the anxiety over dad and mum has taken its' toll - an emotional steamroller.

Stored apples

Our project with Rosa is to develop the border around the south side of the annex. This was formerly lawn that was difficult to mow, where the grass didn't flourish and where the slight difference in levels between the lawn and the terrace have resulted in two falls for dad. Beneath the black plastic we pealed back - a small mammals larder of seeds and worm casts. The evidence of lob worms in the soil has been very encouraging. Lobworms are large anecic worms that move up and down vertically in the soil leaving fertile worm casts. It was a pity to disturb the worms but the soil had been brought in during the building project. We discovered that our ideas of  what makes 'topsoil' and those of builders vary wildly. As we dug, this 'topsoil' yielded bricks, large pieces of concrete and copious rubble.

In spite of interruptions we have now dug the whole area over and incorporated more soil.  Compost and manure will be incorporated and the soil given chance to settle before we plant and then mulch.

Adult moles are said to consume 250 worms a day. From their activity in parts of the garden, I can only guess that our ground is in pretty good nick - as measured by worm populations.

We are beginning the best part of the year for the Woodland Garden. Snowdrops, in their hundreds are poised. Yellow winter aconites along the drive edge have pushed through the thick mulch of leaves and are flowering earlier than we've seen them before.

Bramblings continue to be more numerous than in previous years and now little, apple green siskins too.

And I'm pleased to report that I've heard house sparrows chirping from a section of our boundary hedge that the tractor-driven hedge trimmer couldn't reach. Roger has put up colony boxes on his new store in the hope that we can encourage breeding.