Maybugs or that monster on the bedside table!

Sunday evening it was hot - I left the blind and the window open and settled down to read a chapter of the latest book, 'When Red is Black' by Qiu Xiaolong before sleep. Something crashed into the bedside light and madly riccoced against the inside of the shade before falled stunned (I presume) onto my bedside table. Initial thought a moth.. first glance a brown monster thingy. Exit from bed swift, oh and I shouted something very loud! Had to get a container and contain the beasty which on close inspection - though not too close - was some sort of large brown beetle of a type I had never seen before.

Come the morning lots of interest and jumping about from the children and we tried to find it on the internet before school 'large brown flying beetle' into google no joy. However after another half an hour searching I came across a neat looking website http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/. which clearly showed me what I had got. A Cockchafer Beetle or to give it it's common name 'Maybug' as there are supposed to be lots of them around in May. It amazes me that I have been gardening since I was a child and have only just seen one - how is that possible? I have seen the grubs in the soil only once before, horrible looking things but never thought to wonder what the parent looked like. I grew up in the countryside but never saw a slow worm, that I can recall, and there wasn't a badger sett anywhere near home as a child but the nearest is just 50 yards from the bottom of my garden now.

Another blotanist was discussing the rarity of sparrows, I am happy to say I see quite a few of those quite frequently so there's a plus.

Bought purple carrot seed yesterday!! Carrot that I sowed earlier is only part of a row as an animal (badger/cat/whatever) dug up one end . The garlic was dug up too and what remains looks sick. Someone said garlic was hard to grow! Something is eating the potato plants! The alliums are flowering and it's a beautiful day.

Amphibians

I have a frog in the garage! He lives by the tap which has a slow leak, not just a washer leak which I could fix but a fault with the pipe somewhere. It therefore means there is a permanent damp patch around the drain, the drain is wet anyway because that is where the waste from the sink goes. The frog is not green but black – why?

I first noticed the frog a couple of weeks ago and jumped and screamed. I thought maybe he was lost and I should move him out to the pond but since I didn’t do anything about him and he’s still there despite the door being left open I presume he stays because he’d happy. Well perhaps ‘happy’ is not a term applied to frogs. He or maybe she sits below the tap hands neatly folded and doesn’t seem bothered by anything I do. I think he probably has a good supply of spiders and woodlice to eat, I’m not sure about tap water? I will have to think of what is going down the drain in case he should be taking a bath when I’m bleaching the tea stains! Eeeck not a possible frog killer too! Anyway I shall call him Percy. Cameron my 9 year old wants to put him in a container and make him a pet. Cameron is very, very keen to have a pet. We finally got him a hamster 2 weeks ago but it is very disappointing, I think maybe because it’s female, moody or something. Never comes out to see him and bites if we try to pick it up and sleeps 18 hours a day – truly no fun. I wish we’d got the rabbits but we have regular foxes and badgers in the garden and anything in a hutch may be terrorised. Still rabbit manure is probably good for the compost heap.

The compost bin has reptilian visitors too – they really do make me scream. I have an aversion to snakes and no amount of common sense can endear me to slow worms which seem to enjoy nesting in the bins. However they are apparently a sign of a healthy bin so I will leave them alone and just bang about a lot before I open a bin. That’s another thing compost – who has time to turn compost? How are you supposed to turn it if it’s in a big bin. My bins are proper compost bins with ventilation/slow worm access holes and when I think the stuff has broken down I just remove the sides and dig it out, but turn it – never!

I have fish in my pond too. Too many to count, they started out as 4 from the pet shop and just bred, they must be happy there. But they eat the frogspawn so I never have tadpoles but that doesn’t seem to stop frogs from laying eggs each spring. I have a ball with a little fountain and the frogs like to get inside – perhaps the vibration of the pump does something for them? I have to routinely evict the frogs to clean the pump – definitely a ‘marigold’s job. They’re green frogs.

Pots and pots.

Lovely day – not a cloud in the sky, typical after a bank holiday weekend. Monday which was May day was damp and grey and not a gardening day. Yesterday it was18 degrees by 10.00 in the morning sun hats and sun tan lotion weather - looks like the same for today. I do feel sorry for the people in the offices. Not that sorry though it used to be me.

Planted out the first of the ‘climbing’ petunias. Some in little plastic pots, some in peat pots (never again!!) and some in newspaper pots. See below for the difference between the plastic pot roots circling the bottom of the pot and the ones of the newspaper pot which have pushed their way through. The newspaper pots are longer too so deeper roots to start off when in the ground. Definitely a must from now on. Need to sort out making larger pots ie ‘pot into a 3 inch pot’. The principle for making the pots does not work much above 1 and a half inches. I have a cunning plan – watch this space!

Anyway half of the plants are in, may have put too many in we’ll see also I have no idea how the ‘climbing’ is supposed to happen. The T&M dvd was a bit vague, I suspect I will have to tie them up.

Had to find a home for a dwarf conifer that was occupying the one pot that was the right size for the second batch of petunias. I would have given it away if I could think of someone who would want it. I could have chucked it but it deserves a chance, just hope it goes on being dwarf once in the ground.

This is the wire frame purchased in a rash online moment for the petunias, some bamboo canes would probably have done just as well.

Cosmos seed were up by last Friday!! Must be the growing season or something.