#30DaysWild 2019

It’s that time of year again! The annual Wildlife Trusts campaign, 30 Days Wild is back. The idea is to challenge yourself and your family to do one wild thing a day, be it growing veg, walking barefoot in the garden, watching a bee, putting up a bird box for next year… Whatever. Get a little bit wild, be creative, have fun and learn something new!

You can read all of my previous #30DaysWild and #7DaysOfWildChristmas posts by clicking this here link. I also used to post daily photos on Instagram, but I don’t use that anymore, so this year I am going to post a weekly roundup blog of my 2019 attempt.

Share your photos online with the tag #30DaysWild and get inspiration from the world around you! 

 

I like bees.

Allotment Life: When Neighbours Give You Beans…

Last year we had such a huge glut of runner beans that at the end of the season we ended up taking just over 4kg to Dudley Zoo, for their chimps to have as a treat. I am now known as Bean Lady at the zoo. We also decided to not grow so many runner beans ever again, as there are only so many you can eat without being truly sick of them as a side for every meal.

From the Dudley Zoo Facebook

This year we were doing well as only Momma P had a few on Plot 4 – and then an up-the-road-neighbour came round and asked my dad if we’d like some. He said yes.

So now we have a lot of runner beans! I lost count and a couple of the smaller ones went straight to compost, but I think I planted about 30 bean plants on the plot. I gave them all an 8ft tall tepee structure made with canes, put them all in, then promptly decided I didn’t like it. I only had enough compost to fill half of the bed, so a quick (not so quick actually, their customer service staff could do with some training) trip down to Homebase to get some peat free compost, and Momma P and I spent a rainy Sunday morning redoing the beans.

A new frame built by David and painted by me

Cardboard and compost, and a makeshift retaining wall

I dug them all out which was quite easy as the compost was loose and not compacted. I then removed all the canes, put in the rest of the compost, levelled it off, and we then put all the canes back in along the length of the bed to make an A frame. As I had put double layer corrugated card on the floor (as a biodegradable weed suppressant layer) before covering it with compost we couldn’t push the canes into solid ground, so we buttressed other canes against it – so now I have a massive, mass-engineered structure, which will hopefully stay upright if we have wind! In theory it is in quite a sheltered location next to the shed, thanks to the next door unoccupied plot which is one third bramble thicket.

The first attempt with canes

The final cane product!

I very much prefer this new bean structure, and I hope the Dudley Zoo chimps will appreciate the effort gone into this years bean growing! I do get excited about picking beans as it is such a regular reliable crop, but I just don’t think I can eat them all without help.

It's Been A While

Hello!

Well, it has been a while since I last blogged. I didn’t realise it had been so long though!  Time sure does fly when you’re busy.

I’ve been all sorts of everywhere in the last few weeks. A weekend away to Nottingham with David, a long weekend away to the Lake District with a group of friends from university, and of course I have been up to the allotments.

Allotment News:

Plot 4 is now full and looking good – just need to keep on top of bindweed pulling. It was Momma Pats birthday so David and Momma & Poppa B got Momma P a new bench for her plot. It just appeared as if by magic!

Plot 31 is finally, finally!, taking shape. It is actually becoming the plot I first envisioned, all those years ago when I first took it on (2009!). Building up the beds with wood and filling with compost is proving to be a very expensive and time consuming way to do things – this weekend alone I have spent £90 on peat free compost – but hopefully it will pay off in the future. The ground simply isn’t great for planting things directly into it, so raised beds are the way to go.

Momma P used my new shears to clip the grass and nettles back – we had forgotten just how wide the plot actually is – so now I am planning more beds to fill in the gaps and use up some of the space. I am gradually trying to reduce the amount of grass on the plot, a) so that Momma doesn’t have to keep mowing it, and b) to get rid of the couch grass. I don’t want to be entirely rid of the grass though as it supports a lot of wildlife and helps drainage.

Creative Hobby News:

Whilst I was away in the Lakes, Anna, Rowena and I had a Sunday morning craft session and I decided I wanted to start painting. I mentioned this to David when I got home, and then a few days later he gifted me a watercolour set and a notepad to start painting in! He is definitely a keeper.  I always want to be amazingly brilliant at everything the first time I try it, so I am starting slow and small and just faffing with paints to get used to them, to decide what I want to try and to learn how to doodle in paint. So far I have done this:

…Which is guess isn’t a bad start! I am going to experiment more with perspective and layering – starting with things in less detail at the back and building up detail in the foreground.

Job News:

I had the busiest day of my new job so far, with 40 volunteers coming to a session led by me. It was easily the most stressful two weeks building up to it, but it all went ok and we got absolutely loads of work done. By the end of this week I will have had about 85 volunteers out with me at two sites. I am still really enjoying it; I get a lot of freedom to do things, and this week we are going to tick off a few big creative projects and start planning the next lot.

My new buddy Jess the Farm Cat

Lake District News:

It was beautiful. B-e-a-u-tiful. The weather forecast was awful but actually turned out so good that we all got sunburn on the first day! We found some exceptional fossilised plant remains which are now in my collection at home, and had a couple of nice scenic walks. I have never been to the Lakes before, but I want to come back with David and properly explore. The house we stayed in is a 9-bed AirBnB – link here if you want to see it.

Life News:

Momma P cut my hair in the back garden. A bit spur of the moment, but it has needed cutting for a few months but I keep conveniently forgetting to book an appointment. I had planned to cut 2 inches off but actually removed about 5 or 6.

I am still trying very hard to not be on social media at the weekends but it doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t use it much during the work day, unless I am using it for work, but the weekends is when I tend to share allotment things on Twitter, or bee house updates (see below):

Boy bee

A ruby-tailed wasp. Parasitic on mason bees.

Crochet News:

I am still working away on both my Battenberg Blanket, and the Temperature Blanket. I haven’t had much desire to do crochet lately. I took my squares with me to the Lakes and made 8 more and I am still noting down the temperature at 4pm each day. I just tend to save it all for a mass crochet session instead of little and often.

I shall post another blog shortly with Lake District Fun Times in it, with pics of the fossils!

A Creative Day

I planned to have an indoor day, so I spent a few hours up at the allotment weeding, chopping back grass, painting timber for a raised bed, sowing more seeds, harvesting a lone radish that wasn’t big enough last week, feeding the birds, watching the bees, and planting nasturtium plants!

A wee bee.

Aside from the allotment, I have been crocheting – I have started the second half of my temperature blanket project and counted them both three times to make sure I had the same number of stitches, convinced myself they were the same, counted again, and the new one was twenty stitches less than the other! Instead of frogging (ripping it all out) it, I decided to make a 20-stitch wide patch to tack on the end, this would be much faster. I’ve now added it to the blanket and started the next few rows so hopefully now it is the same width as the first blanket!

I have been playing with clay as well – I bought some new soft Fimo from eBay; I am very excited by their new colours and now want to buy ALL OF IT. I have been faffing around just to get used to it again, I always used to use the classic clay but I have been buying soft to make it easier on my hands. I think they both have their merits; soft gets very squidgy very quickly but is easier to work. I have made a few bits and pieces, and tried out the ammonite moulds I made last week. I enjoyed it so much that I have ordered yet more clay from eBay and I have been browsing the internet for inspiration! I want to start making Things again; sculptures and models and useful things. In a previous life I used to make beads by the billions so I don’t need any more of those.

After all of the crochet and clay excitement, I decided to have a whittle! I have been making plant labels by whittling a twig at one end to produce a flat surface, and they are quick and easy to make, but I really need to learn how to sharpen my knife and get an edge back on it.

I am still collecting avocado stones whenever I buy one but I haven’t carved one for a while. I really struggle with 3D carving – I can do flat relief but anything 3D is currently beyond me. I think I peaked early with my little avo-carv-o hedgehog I made; nothing will ever top that.

Allotment Life: April 2019

This month David and I sorted the apple tree with a new tree stake, and a nice gravel surround to suppress the weeds around the base. I’m pleased to report that the tree, stake and gravel are all still there and still looking good!

Bees are moving into my latest bee house addition – very exciting. I love sitting and watching them come and go, waving their little hairy butts around.

I had a long weekend off work thanks to Easter, and I was up at Plot 31 every day for five days on the trot. I got excited about carrots and split my shorts, I deadheaded daffodils, I fed the birds, I plotted and planned and got excited. A jaunt up to Homebase yielded eight bags of peat-free compost for £42, but I hadn’t made any progress on Big Projects due to lack of materials, mostly timber.

April started off busy, had a bit of a peak in the middle when I was up there every day – mostly for watering duties! – and then tailed off again. Now that I’ve been paid and have ordered timber, the Big Projects can continue this month; I shall tick two off the list, and do an extra one. It’s all coming together!

It’s only taken nine years…