A few Garden Birds

My neighbour Michael has taken the opportunities presented by our recent snowfall to take yet more amazing photographs. This time he has compiled a set of the most amazing pictures of our garden birds. Please enjoy them, and, once again, a big thank you to Michael, for making them available to me for our enjoyment In this very cold weather, please remember to put out a little food  and water for your local birds.    I believe that they will reward you many times over during the coming year.

Cotton wool??

My bedroom has a pair of French Windows hat exit directly out into the garden.  Most mornings, I leap out of bed and spring to the French windows and, throw them open to allow me access to the closed shutters, in order to both let in the morning sun, as well as to survey the latest changes in my garden.  Well, this may be a slight enhancement of reality,In fact, more often than not, I fall out of bed, stumble across the bedroom and try to focus enough to unlock the catches holding the windows closed!

This morning however, I looked out to find that overnight someone, or possibly something, had chosen to paint the whole of my garden white.  Dazzlingly white!

It was so bright it shocked my senses awake and I realised that there was about 6 inches (150mm) of snow lying on the floor.  The sun was up enough to be making the whole thing far too bright but, I resisted my urge to close the shutters again and return to a more sombre life, and picked up my camera.

Now, I know that to many of you 6” of snow is not even worth commenting on.  Indeed, before I came here I regularly coped with much greater levels of snow, including one year when I actually couldn’t get my car down our lane as the snow was so deep it had completely covered the bridge carrying the railway over the lane.

But since I moved here to France, snow has not been a big feature of my life.   Ignoring my winter holidays in New England, I’ve probably only seen snow on three of four days in the past seven years.  So, as you can imagine, 6 inches of the stuff is notable

The snow got me to thinking.

One of the things I try and do is keep a note of the temperatures and rainfall here.  I log a maximum and minimum temperature every day and I also log the rainfall each week.

On looking back, I see that exactly the same date, but last year, we had temperatures of 17 C (63F) high and –2 C (28F) low.  The snow had arrived following a day when the high reached a staggering  -3C (27F) and the low sagged down to –12C (10F).

I must say that my little collection of potted herbs, that live just outside the back door, are looking particularly forlorn.

Roll on Spring, it’s just around the corner I believe!

Sowing for 2012

I sowed my first seeds of 2012 today.  Just a few cauliflowers and some Antirrhinum's which I'm hoping to get to grow in a corner bed, I use for attracting insects into the "potager".   I also planted up some pumpkin seeds I had germinated....  I know it's a bit early but hey!!

I found those pumpkin seeds recently and wrote a piece about the germination test I ran on them.  Well, they weren't at all good, and only about 35% germinated, 7 out of 20, so I decided to trash the whole batch and dispatched them to the compost heap.  However, those seven that germinated...

I had a good look and, as they all seemed healthy enough, I carefully potted them up.  If I get some pumpkin plants, it will be a bonus.

Sowing the seeds got me to thinking about this time last year when I had such great hopes for the garden, hopes that, sadly in 2011 were to be dashed.  I'm not going to say that I've bounced back, but, maybe I could say I've limped back and with some kind weather, not too many pests and lots of great luck, I'm hoping to get my garden back into shape this year.

 

I'll try and keep you all informed of how I get on.

Germination Testing

Like so many gardeners, well, those of us in the northern hemisphere, I have decided to use the cold winter days to review my stash of seeds before the 2012 season truly arrives.  As I'm sure many of you realise, I'm not the most organised and efficient gardener and so, my seed stash is also not particularly well organised or efficient.  I have a large collection of seeds, many of which I have saved myself, in a huge catalogue of containers, ranging from rather dainty tiny plastic pill boxes to simple paper coffee filters, where, the seeds, once dried, have never actually been transferred to a better container.

This is one of the reasons I lose quite so much of my seed to mice!  The labelling of this wealth of material is equally haphazard, some being very neat and tidy: I have in front of me a rather nice glass jar labelled "Pasteque de Laspissotes saved September 2009", so there's not much doubt there, but I equally have an open box of bean seeds with a note in it that simply says "Poletschka Sept 10" .  Even that is ok, except I'm truly certain it should say September 2011, as I remember saving the seed before going away on holiday last year!!!

All this vagary has led me to decide to carry out a germination test to check whether any of these seeds are ok.

I'm using a simple method I've used very successfully before.

I spread about 10 to 20 seeds on a damp paper kitchen towel.  I put them about 5cms (2") apart, so that there is no contamination if one or two start to rot.   Then I place a second paper towel over the top of the seeds and carefully roll the whole thing into a tube.  Once I have the damp tube of seeds I put it into a plastic bag and seal it, before placing it in a warm spot.   I have just the place, as my central heating boiler has the luxury of it's own little room and, although well ventilated, it still keeps at a very pleasant temperature.  I note when the seeds went in and check every day for signs of germination.   I expect most seeds to germinate in about 5 to 10 days, but it varies from variety to variety.   I let them carry on for a couple of days after the first shoots appear and then count the number of seeds that have successfully germinated.  Something over 80% is what I look for, but if it's only 50% I make a note to sow twice as many seeds at each station to compensate.  Remember to keep the paper damp or they won't germinate!

In the past, I have tried to plant on the germinated seeds and have had some success, but it's often a bit early for me to keep them going.

I'll let you know how I get on