Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Have been very slowly clearing the shitty bit at the bottom of my garden where I dumped all my bramble clippings and branches and everything. I sit down while I'm clearing all this stuff out and go really, really, really slowly, and I find all sorts of interesting wildlife.

Today I found a slug under some leaf litter with a baby woodlouse stuck upside down to its back, wiggling its little legs helplessly in the air 😭 (i rescued it). Also I found a frog! I knew I had them but I'd never actually seen one before because they hide from me. And I disturbed a big fucking centipede the size of my toe.

I keep seeing these things, over and over in dead wood - I don't know what they are. Something has presumably burrowed into the wood to lay an egg or whatever, and then the thing has hatched and burrowed its way back out. But whatever the thing is, it leaves a moulted exoskeleton behind, partially embedded in the dead wood. All that's left is this translucent worm-shaped exoskeleton with two big hecking jaws at the business end. They look like tiny, land-based bobbit worms. They're very interesting and also slightly terrifying and I wish I knew what they were. Googling "dead wood bobbit worm garden" has not been fruitful so far for some mysterious reason.

Gardens are great.

Stag beetle pupa? Had a female in our garden a few days ago.

1 Attachment

I’ve never seen one up close, amazing bright orange eyes. The veggies will probably get eaten to death by slugs now I’ve moved him.

@Belagerent all the new shoots on our viburnum are plastered with blackfly, seems the more I blast them off the more they spread.

Out of curiosity how come you went for brick planters and how many days did it take?

Cheers.

Stag beetle pupa? Had a female in our garden a few days ago.

Maybe! They seem too small for stag beetles, though - they're only about a centimetre long tops. There's woodlice bigger than them.

Great pic! They're fearsome little beasts. I've never seen one in real life, will be keeping an eye out for 'em.

6 days from digging out and levelling the plot to completion. Proper concrete foundations and brick construction guarantee something like permanence. There's nearly 1,000 bricks in this one. Paths are Type 1 roadstone with membrane then shingle. Having a client who can afford the work helps!

I can't afford me.

Yeah Stag beetle grubs are pretty big. They are weird looking things; used to find them a lot on my dad's allotment when I was young

@Sam_w - how did you do the grading on all of your land?

It all looks so flat, and I struggle to make faltten anything larger than a few square meters.

Also, general question to the class - brown or green treated sleepers for raised beds & path edging?

Depends which bit of land you mean! I grade off most of the land with my digger, which gets me 90% of the way there, the rest is done much more painstaking with a selection of rakes, starting with a foot wide metal with deep tines, then moving up to a 3ft wide with shorter metal tines and then finally onto plastic tines. It’s painful horrible work, but gives a good finish. Also helps that I have a laser level so can set that up and keep checking how I am getting on. In the past I have hammered pegs into the ground and used those.

If you can take the hit try and find oak, will not need treating and will last so much longer than softwood. I’m obviously not in London but I can get softwood down here for £20 or oak for £25, so not that much of a premium. They also fade to a lovely silver colour

Agreed; I wouldn't particularly recommend softwood railway sleepers covered with creosote.

(Other than for building a railway with)

Despite being covered in aphids the lupin is massive this year!

1 Attachment

I would recommend proper old railway sleepers, they're the only thing that will last long. They're a bastard to work with and move around. Most of the cheap oak sleepers are not native oak and don't last much longer than softwood.

1 Attachment

Softwood for comparison.

1 Attachment

those don't look like sleepers (second pic)

Nope, they don't look like 'real' sleepers, but that's what you get if you ask for softwood sleepers. In reality they're just lumps of milled and pressure treated pine.

ah right. i can see why those don't last.

OK.

I was trying to work out the cost based on the days. That's pretty hety

Joys of not being in London, I can get English oak sleepers (proper ones) for £25+vat. The issue I have with railway sleepers (have used them in my front garden) is when they get hot, 4 year old sits on them, and she ends up with creosote on her clothes...

Yeah, this is my objection to them. Creosote isn't particularly nice. I've seen people get skin burns after shifting railway sleepers on a hot day.

It has been illegal to creosote sleepers since June 2003, sleepers creosoted prior to that date can be sold 2nd hand.

Yeah. Right. I had a batch delivered last year that had apparently been stored in a vat of creosote....

As I said, they're a bastard to handle (I have a 16 stone, thick-as-a-brick labourer who really struggles as he has sensitive skin). They are not recommended for play areas, furniture or inside use. They're also several times the weight of the alternatives, but they do last forever. They are good for retaining walls or woodland steps, both applications I wouldn't recommend new sleepers for.

Incredible! Well done!

It’s a good year for lupins, I think. Mine has gone absolutely bonkers. This is it about 2 weeks ago. I think I’m up to 13 flower spikes now.

1 Attachment

Wow! And looks like yours in aphid free too