Animals

Winter in the garden

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

Winter is a time of the year of slowing down, contemplating the winter structure of the garden, remembering all of last season with its’ ups and downs. But if you think the garden is “dead” during winter time, it has just fooled you. Take some time to look closer, be still, watch the life there is. And be prepared with your camera/cell phone.

Structures. I usually let many of my withered plants stand in the autumn, not cutting them down for the winter. When frost and snow comes, I have wonderful structures breaking the monotony of the sleeping garden.

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Birds. Winder feeding of the garden birds is quite a joy. If you put some time on good feeding places, protection for the small birds and of course good bird food (I use organic seeds from a professional producer, http://www.slattergubben.se, I can reallly recommend him, also for his fantastic instructive videos) you will have spectacular bird watching all winter. Many different birds visit my feeding places, last week I even caught a Sparrow Hawk with my binoculars landing in our cherry tree close to the house.

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Mystical visits. Don´t forget to make a tour round the garden now and then, even in winter. You will soon be aware of small changes. Footprints in the snow … A bucket turned over … A hole in a garden bed. Often these mystical visits come by night. But if you are lucky, it is even possible to catch some of the biggest animals. Look at this photo, where a small family of mouses trotted right over our garden.

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Strawberry fantasies

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

Is it possible to grow strawberries in the garden, without the birds eating them?

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Because I have a strawberry bed now, in what was this spring a tulipe bed, also called The Heart for the World (see earlier blog posts). It is not covered with any net, so logically the garden birds should go there and eat. But they don’t. And I have some theories. First theory is that I give the garden birds seeds every morning, not so much, just a small support  for their summer meals. Is that more attractive than diving down into the bed of strawberries?

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Second theory, my strawberry bed is very “messy”, because I did not have time to weed it during spring. There are a lot of faded leaves from winter and also leaves from the tulip season in spring. It makes a ground covering that protects the berries from lying onto the bare soil, but perhaps is it also too messy for the birds to dare to dive into bed – what could be hiding down there, a snake or some other predator?

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The garden worm “Max”.

So I provide food and water for the garden birds and they keep the amount of insects at a healthy leavel. The result is, this season I have harvested more than 15 litres of strawberries! Thank you nature and thank you birds for this amazing cooperation.

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The wooden sticks were meant to support the berry net, now they are just a design thing.

 

 

 

 

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Squirrel rules

~ Eva the Gardener ~ Leave a comment

On our tool shed I have mounted a squirrel feeder from Vivara. The little box with a lid was quickly adopted by the squirrel babies from this spring. Now about two months old, the three babies are scampering around, arguing between each other over food or just showing off.  Sometimes when I come to the feeder, one of them has creeped into the feeder, his small body fitting perfectly into the cube, and there he forgets about being careful and watchful and just lose himself in the heap of food.

This time I had my camera with me …