Wildlife in September

New entries onto the list this month are a Newt found under the cold frame when we moved it, the Hedgehog seen under the bird feeders one morning and a Grey Wagtail.
Other highlights are that the pair of french Partridge who used to visit constantly, but have been away for a while - presumably happy to raise their young on naturally occurring food - have appeared a few times with three teenagers, and Mr and Mrs P (pheasant) have paraded their family of about 10 to show them off as well.




New entries onto the list this month

Indian Summer?

We hadn't seen them since last Saturday, the wind had been from the North. We were convinced we'd seen the last of them for this year. How wrong we were!




It looks as though we still have a few days of summer left.

Prickly Visitor

We used to get hedgehogs a lot at our old house. Attracted by the bird seed. We were only talking about them on Sunday, and that we hadn't seen any, or evidence of any, since moving up here. Our neighbours hadn't seen any for ages either. Somebody must have been listening.........

Autumn is Here

It really does feel like Autumn. Friday night the temperature dropped to 3c and we had a ground frost in the village. Saturday night was 3.5c. The Swallows and House Martins that have been busy practicing for weeks, have finally left on their long flight to Africa. They have entertained us since the first one arrived on 12th April, with their acrobatics over the garden and the field.

Working Party

Our neighbours have been busy clearing out part of an old hedge in their field, ready to plant a new one. We offered them a hand. 8.30am on a Sunday in September seems like a good time for bonfire night.

The boys get the fire going

While the girls move huge heaps of blackthorn from one end of the field to the fire

A back draught catches Husband out and removes some of his fringe, eyebrows and eye lashes


Time for a break as the first two heaps have been cleared.

Then the cavalry arrive in the shape of John and Gill, also friends from the village. John is the mad chainsaw man (ex forester) and soon has us moving more blackthorn, holly and rose down to the fire.

A barbecue lunch, cooked over embers from the fire sets us up nicely for the afternoon.

Then it's back to work with truck and trailer to transport more hedging to the fire. By now it was too far to drag it down.



Two sides of a 5 acre field later, and a huge pile of embers which Will probably still be burning in two days time.

Parabolic Shear

Working hard all day can be very rewarding. After screening the rest of the soil/ballast that our predecessor had turned into a rockery, we set about moving all the soil that was surplus to requirements from the lower bed in the back garden. We are now left with 3 piles. One is ballast/soil mix which may or may not get screened in the future. One is subsoil (I have my own plans for this), the other is topsoil. The latter will be used in the next phase of the garden renovations.

If you are wondering about the title of this blog, don't worry. There is one person who will know exactly what it is about, and hopefully will smile when he sees it. Happy memories of team meetings (in the 'good old days')!
Having moved as much soil as necessary, we set about digging the bed over. A spit deep revealed rather a lot of naturally occurring stone. This is just some of the stone we unearthed.

Finally we have an area nearly ready for planting.

A bit of weathering and a few clogs to knock out then all that remains is to get the plants organised and get planting.

Rain Stopped Play

We had hoped to Screen some more soil today, but following the rain we have had in the last couple of days, it was just too wet. Oh how I remember that problem. Our Topsoil production was one of the things that used to keep me awake in my previous life.
Never mind. One of our many Red Admirals came to say hello while we were looking at the state of the soil. This one landed on Husband's back!




After abandoning the garden, we FINALLY got our bikes out and went for a bike ride around local villages. Calling in to say 'Hello' to Ollie on the way. Back home in time for a well earned cuppa and time to watch the birds - only they all disappeared as we sat down! Shortly after which a Kestrel was chased out of the field by a rook. The only bird brave enough to sit it out was this juvenile woody. He just sat, very still, for ages. Then got busy feeding again.

More Digging

After the excitement of finding Yesterdays Buried Treasure, Husband spent much of the morning removing it, in the theory that it will not have been helping the drainage in the corner which floods. In doing so, it became apparent, that it isn't just in our garden, but goes quite some distance under our fence too!

The next snag, was the discovery of the footings for an old boundary wall, when the house was first built. This was unsurprisingly, exactly where we wanted the French drain. Never mind, we already have a trench where the trough was, which runs right along the wall, so we decided to make this the position of the drain.

Having dug the trench the length of the bed, it was then filled with ballast/soil mixed. Conveniently available in the very area we are working.

It may have been convenient for the drain, but all of this area is a mass of buried ballast. This means that we are having to carefully sort the soil and riddle the majority of it to remove the ballast. Luckily for us, one of our wonderful sets of neighbours has a home for all the sieved stone.

Once all that has been done, it will then need digging over (you can see some of the sandstone we find in the picture above!), quite a bit of the soil will be removed to reduce the level to the same as the patio. Then it will be time to incorporate lots of FYM before it can be planted up.

Buried Treasure?

Time to start on the next section of the back garden. We have cleared all the shrubs, self set marigolds, weeds and general rubbish growing in this area. The slope on the patio is such that, in heavy rain, we get a pool collecting in the corner of the patio, which takes an age to drain away. we plan to put in a french drain along to edge of this bed, to help reduce this. A simple task like digging a trench soon became a bit more interesting though, when Husbands spade hit something metal............

So we dug a bit more, and a bit more, and a bit more...........

It appeared to be hollow, cylindrical....

In the end, after much procrastinating peering into the object, we decided it was nothing more exciting than an old, upturned cattle feed trough.

Aira Force

After a couple of weeks of Indian Summer, the weather decided to take a turn for the worse, in time to coincide with a visit from Mum and Dad.

Left to amuse themselves while Husband and I visited Hawes annual sale, my parents were really impressed by a local garden centre we had recommended; Larch Cottage. The best they have ever been to apparently - praise indeed. Mum and dad are quite well qualified in this particular subject!

With the weather improving on Wednesday afternoon, we decided to do a short walk, and what more appropriate place to visit than one of the first walks they did when they started on their own Lake District adventures, about 50 years ago. Aira Force.




Far too many people around for our liking, but hardly surprising given the amount of rain that had fallen. The falls were certainly impressive to say the least.

Vegetable varieties

For our own use, we thought it would be a good idea to summarise what has done well or otherwise in the vegetable garden this year. Hopefully this will help decide the plans for next year.
Most of these are still feeding us and will be for some time yet.

Rocket - good yield, bolting quickly
Lollo Rossa - good yield.
Radish (Long White Icicle) - Big yield, bolts quite quickly.
Beetroot (Botardy) - A bit slow, but successive plantings will keep us going for many more weeks.
Spinach (Emilia F1) - bolted very quickly
Spinach Beet (Perpetual) - good so far, just starting to crop it.
Courgette (Patriot F1) - Good, but need to be in back garden to make most of sunshine. Blossom end rot a bit of a problem.
Courgette (Golden) - slow but same as above
Carrot (resistafly) - good yield but inedible due to Carrot fly.
Carrot (Autumn King) - watch this space. We are hoping a later sowing might beat the fly.
Broad Beans (Masterpiece Green Longpod) - phenomenal. Will move to side to shelter from winds next year.
Runner Beans (Armstrong Stringless) - also phenomenal.
Parsnips (Gladiator F1) - Looking good but none pulled yet.
Tomatoes - of the 4 varieties planted only Ailsa Craig has been really impressive. Outdoor Toms at 1000 ft is probably a bit too much to ask. We will probably try them in the window of the garage next year.
Peppers (Big Jim & Mohawk) - both have yielded well, once moved indoors.
Leeks No idea what variety - a neighbour brought them from France, but they are HUGE!
Red Cabbage Also unknown as a gift from neighbours as young plants. Done very well, but take up too much room.
Potatoes (Maris Peer) - Not the variety either of us would have wanted to grow, but the only one we could get late in the day when we decided to grow new tates in containers. Despite not being our kind of tate, it has yielded incredibly well and is still feeding us as it will be for another week or two. Different variety next year, but well worth growing in tubs.

Other than what has already been mentioned, no late season veg have been planted as we intend to do a bit of reorganising the veggie plots.

High Pike and (nearly) Carrock Fell

Friends staying for a few days gave us chance to have a sunny (but rather hazy) walk, so we thought we'd take the chance to do a linear walk. Leaving one car at Calebreck, we drove to Fellside and walked up through the old mine workings on to High Pike. The plan was to then go across to Carrock and then head down to the second car at Calebreck.
Lunch with a view and a sudden realisation that we had left the keys for car number 2, in car number 1, made us change our plans a little! So instead, we did a circular walk.

Lingy Hut, just beyond Great Lingy Hill - pictured are Buddy (neighbours dog who we were looking after), Simon, Sally, Husband and Her Ladyship. From here we headed Off Piste to Roughton Gill mines and back to the car at Fellside.
A different route than anticipated, but just as enjoyable and Hattie's longest for a while. About 8 miles, not bad for a 90 something year old equivalent!