30 Days Wild

The final instalment of this year's 30 Days Wild. 

A full day working in the garden today (next big jobs happening at the weekend and there's a bit of prep to do this week). I finally spotted some cinnabar moth caterpillars on the ragwort in the garden, which is about to flower. I also saw a ladybird, several froghoppers and a few other insects making use of this plant. A lovely full day outdoors to end 30 Days Wild! 

Before June, I expected 30 Days Wild to look very different to how it turned out. I was furloughed from work and expected to have loads of time for nice, outdoor / nature based adventures! Only a little bit of garden work was planned at that point, but this escalated quickly when my dad got involved and said he would help with some of the jobs I thought might happen next year in order to get things done as soon, I'll never have time for it (see below!). It's been a full on month of hard work - especially in the heat we've had - and I've not really left the garden or done anything particularly interesting for 30 Days Wild, though the garden is finally taking shape and it feels good to have it transformed at last!

I felt like giving up on 30 Days Wild last week week as I've found it hard to keep up, have barely been out of the garden all month and last week it has been far to hot to go outside!! I have limped through though so may as well make it to the end now! 

On day 22 I noticed that aphids had moved in on the elder and ants were taking advantage to farm them. I also set up my insect watering hole, which I remembered to dig out of the shed, ready for the next wave of too-hot-weather. 

On day 23 I had a hospital appointment and had planned to have a little walk on the way home for 30 Days Wild... it didn't happen though! What I thought was to be an in and out within the hour affair turned into a whole afternoon! 4 hours sat in a hot hospital and having to wear a mask the whole time. It was a really hot day so by the time I left at 5pm - and having to get into a car that had been sitting in full sun for the whole time - I was ready to just get straight home to eat and cool down!  Instead of my planned walk, I ended up just having a cup of tea in the shade and watering the new plants on the wall we built last week. 

Day 24 was another hot one so there was no going outdoors for me ... I just can't cope with heat! All I managed was watching the swifts at dusk.

Day 25 was hotter still *sigh* so it was another indoor day mostly but then I did get in about 4 hours outdoors in the evening! I painted scaffold boards ready for one of the next garden projects, faffed about with the habitat wall adding some mini pine cones in holes and putting bee tubes in the terracotta pipes. Then I decided to have a cup of tea sitting out on my bench around 10pm. There were still swifts flying overhead and the temperature was lovely, along with a breeze! 

I was hoping day 26 was to be a much cooler day but it wasn't so. I got out early in the morning for a couple of hours to paint more scaffold boards and pot up a couple of plants and did some faffing around with the pond too.  Later in the afternoon I was eating some fruit that needed using up and decided to put a few pieces out as an insect buffet. I'd seen quite a few butterflies in the garden over the last few days so though some of them might appreciate it. I managed to capture a hoverfly taking advantage of it.

Working in the garden again on day 16... Met a moth, think it's a bright line brown eye but please correct me if I'm wrong. Not enjoying the heat, there has been very little in the way of rain and thunder here yet everyone else seems to be getting it!

Another day in the garden! Spent a large chunk of the day attempting to dig out a big tree stump with a trowel 😂 I can't manage a spade at the moment but I made good progress with that trowel and then with a saw, a crowbar and a bit of help to lever it, I got several roots out. I worked into the evening again and enjoyed a few rumble of thunder and a rain shower. I was looking at rain drops in the elder and noticed a flower had fallen and wedged between leaves. (bottom left in the middle photo below).

On day 20, I should have been in Coventry to see Rammstein again, but that was postponed until next June, which I was happy about as it turned out this wasn't the best timing for it really for me personally.  This meant I was able to have my garden workers in today and we did an 11 hour day getting things done! 

We built a raised planter to tidy up a border down on side of the garden (there are laurels planted in it, which I don't like, but they were there when I bought the house and my neighbour likes a low hedge so I'm keeping them and growing them for privacy for now). Also finally got rid of the big old tree stump and put a pond in, rediscovered the garden path and re-laid it and made plans for the next steps in the garden. The main objective of this day was originally just the building a habitat wall out of all the bricks, rubble and stone unearthed from this garden. I bought the terracotta pipes and facing bricks but the rest was just using up rubbish. The wall looks really good too - much better than I expected 😂 will share photos at some point. Everything else we did was the result of my dad getting a bit keen and saying he'd box in my laurels and between us we could soon get the pond in so the day kind of spiralled from the initial plan and my garden is looking completely different now. I'm really happy about that. I shouldn't have had time this year with working full time March to July then other demands on my time after that so I'm very happy that lockdown has given my family so much time - we've all been getting busy in the gardens or ticking longstanding jobs on the list and the timing on this garden work for me was perfect!   There's still a lot to do, but the progress we've made over the last couple of weeks is incredible and that provides just the boost needed to continue!