Ne'er cast a clout till May be out
Its almost June and the saying 'Ne'er cast a clout till May be out' - meaning don't discard your warm clothing till May has ended - seems quite apt. Another interpretation of the saying lies in the fact that the word May also refers to the Hawthorn tree, and is don't discard your warm clothing till the Hawthorn has flowered. The Hawthorn tree on the golf course behind our garden looks to be a few days of warm weather away from flowering, so either interpretation of the saying is appropriate this year.
Despite the inclement weather the number of bugs including the midge seems to be on the rise and bats regularly fly over our garden after dusk. Its fun to go out and listen to them with a bat detector whilst squashing slugs. Which brings me on to two major and intricately linked projects I am very excited about, one of which has the side-effect of necessitating the start of this years slug war.
I have finally got round to starting the pond which will be such a major boost to wildlife in our garden. The question I faced when digging the pond was where to put all the soil. Building raised vegetable beds at the same time seemed the perfect solution for our heavy clay soils. So after two days of hard work I have 3 small raised beds - slightly quirky ones made of salvaged tree limbs and rocks - and a large hole in the ground but as yet no dent in my pocket. OK, thats not strictly true as I have £200 worth of rubber, underlay, overlay and plants on order. Incidentally, the rubber liner is delayed due to all production going to Nepal to aid in the earthquake recovery, as well as to Syria. So what have these two projects got to with slugs? Well, I have already planted out one of my raised beds with runner beans and they are quite vunerable at the moment. I have 2 slug traps filled with my sweet yeast mix (600ml warm water, 1.5 tbsp dry bakers yeast and 1.5 tbsp sugar) on guard each night and I go out as well to contribute to the effort.
Bluetits are nesting in at least one if not two of our new boxes. I just saw a bluetit fly into the one on the swing frameset and whilst building the raised beds nearby I frequently could hear a regular tapping sound - a bit like a woodpecker - from the same nestbox. The tapping I am hearing is made by the female inside the nestbox and opinions vary as to what purpose this serves. Possibilities include either trying to keep her beak trim whilst largely inactive, enlarging or reshaping the opening from inside or testing for structural soundness. A camera to show where the pecking is occurring would help narrow down these possibilities or offer new theories. Lacking this, I personally prefer the beak trimming option. As to the other nextbox: I did see a male feeding its partner inside about 3 or 4 weeks back, but have not noticed any activity recently. I wonder if the strong winds we had this month, which made that nest box (sited in a large shrub) sway considerably, have caused the parents to re-think their choice of nest site. Right, 10 pm, headtorch, bat detector headphones and wellies on, time to get out there.
