Pond garden spring 2017.

Our regular visitor, he is a non-native sika deer, doesn't do too much damage but he tests my degree of non-attachment and loving kindness! He likes to rub his antlers on the bark of young trees, removing their bark. This stunts the trees severely and sometimes kills them. He also breaks branches when eating leaves, but mostly it is the young shoots in spring that he eats and the trees can recover from this.

Perhaps he thinks he is invisible standing behind the apple tree and although he will run off when we come near, he is surprisingly brazen.

 Magpie pecking at his antlers. He is not just one, Tivon counted 8 Sika Deer in the next field and I expect there are not just 8 either.

Sarcoscypha coccinea, the scarlet elf cup, scores of these carpeted a damp area near the big pond.

Frost on the bank of the big pond... and reflections.

Reflection of oak.

Cornus reflected in the big pond on a frosty morning.

February Reflections in the big pond.
(No the photo isn't upside down!).

Growing near the big pond... Salix chaenomeloides "Mt Aso".

Chimonanthus, wintersweet.

Trillium.

Erythronium.

Fresh new growth of Schefflera brevipedunculata.

  Equisetum arvense, Horsetail was growing in the garden before it even was a garden. Many, if not most, gardeners consider it to be terrible weed but we have been living with it in harmony for almost 20 years, this is a plant that I respect!

 ...Isn't it handsome!

 Darmera peltata.

Magnolia Rostrata.

Native Primrose.

 Tivons turkey and one of the hens on the meadow with primroses.

A hail shower on 25th April.

September toadstools.

A few of the toadstools in the garden today.

Fly Agaric.

I think this one is Lycoperdon perlatum.

 

August polytunnel.

There are Earth Star fungi in the small tunnel again.

Several earthstars are growing under the fig tree.

Another year, another years supply of tomatoes!

Alfie chopping straight from the vine into the pot.

 

This one is a triple cherry.

 

After the tomatoes simmer in the pot we make passata, Tivon loves to help with this process!

Figs, peaches and nectarines.

 
Black hamburg grapes and tomatoes. 

Autumn fungi.

It seems that this is the total of our 2014 autumn fungi photos!

Toadstool town, September 5th. Growing on a birch stump.

 
September 5th.

Puffballs, September 11th.

Bracket fungi.

February 24th

This very pretty bracket fungus is growing on a dead willow stump near the big pond.  I am guessing it is a  Trametes versicolor, commonly known as turkey tail.

Earth stars

 

 I continue to see Geastrum fungus, commonly known as earth stars, in the small tunnel beside the asparagus that grows under the peach tree.

Late January garden 2014

I found another little toadstool? (Anyone know what it is?) at an earlier stage of development than in my previous post.
 I think it is enchanting.

  I have an answer.... It is a Geastrum.  Many kinds are commonly known as earth stars.

Their were 3 Robins in the vegetable garden this morning.

 This one is perched on last years bean pole.
 

The Rhubarb is up. This is Victoria in a sheltered shady spot.

After a few weeks on the windowsill the early potatoes have grown their eyes /chitted.

I planted the first ones today in the small tunnel.
The bed is prepared with a mound of old dung, a good sprinkling of ash from the wood-fired range and topped with the shredded asparagus stalks.

The vegetable garden in January.

Kale.

Turnips will need to be picked soon before spring growth starts,

The potting bench in the small tunnel, the season begins.