PICNIC & WALK

SUNDAY 2ND AUGUST

Come and join in with the

FOX & FRIENDS

for a

Picnic + walk around the Summer meadow

11 am - 1pm

Do your bid

You can do your bid with small changes

Creating and managing dead wood
Leave cuttings in beds and below hedges
Leave wood in large pieces
Create a wood pile with logs at least 10cm thick
Leave dead trees and shrubs standing to decompose naturally
An important but often-overlooked element of the garden is the presence of dead and decaying wood. Birds will feed on the insects that make their home in the old wood. In large gardens, a decaying tree with a snagged bough or a small cavity might provide a nest site for a bird or roost for a bat.

Homes for small birds
Provide a nest box or build your own
Make sure nest boxes are appropriate to the species that are already nesting in your garden.
Install them behind fascias or under the eaves
Provide pre-constructed nests for house martins and swallows
Nest boxes have been used for many years. They provide hole-nesting birds with a safe place to rear their young, and create an opportunity for you to see avian life close up. The following information focuses on familiar species of bird that are known to nest on or in buildings.

Homes for insects
Retain natural features such as nectar rich plants
Install a bug box or build your own
Retain dead flower stems through winter and keep all dead woody plants
Retain patches of bare earth
Keep a proportion of south-facing embankments free of dense vegetation
Insects are beneficial garden visitors. Some provide a natural form of pest control, while others help to pollinate plants around the garden. Predatory insects include ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies, and those that pollinate include bumblebees, solitary bees and wasps.

Bees, wasps and hoverflies
Plant a mixture of flowering plants and shrubs in borders
Try to provide plants that will offer nectar all year round
Create a patch of bare earth in a warm, sheltered place
Retain dead wood
All gardens depend on healthy populations of insects. Bees, solitary bees, solitary wasps and hoverflies are important pollinators. Solitary wasps and hoverflies also help to keep pest insects under control. Providing the right conditions for these creatures will help your garden, and the wildlife in it, to thrive.

Managing grass
Maintain a variety of grass heights
Leave part of lawn uncut from late May onwards
Retain long grass through winter until late March/early April
Introduce meadow flowers to add colour to areas of long grass
You can improve your lawn by taking a range of measures, some of which are very simple. Maximise the benefits your lawn offers to wildlife by changing how often and to what height you cut your grass.

Go organic

If you avoid the use of pesticides in the garden,you will immediately increase the numbers of insects visiting. This in turn will encourage insect-eating birds including robins, wrens, blue tits and thrushes, mammals such as hedgehogs and shrews, frogs and toads,as well as increase numbers of bees, butterflies and all manner of beneficial insects.

Habitats

Create additional habitats for wildlife by growing climbing plants against bare walls and fences These provide valuable cover and food for birds, insects and mammals, as well as adding extra interest to the garden.

Help wildlife by providing additional features such as bird and bat boxes, solitary bee nests and bird feeders.

Create a meadow

Consider leaving part of your lawn uncut.

Long grass is an excellent habitat for grasshoppers beetles and young amphibians,and provides roosts for insects such as damselflies.Grasses are also important food sources Leave some nettlesNot only are nettles good for butterflies like Red Admiral,Comma and Peacock, they also have so much too offer to other wildlife.

Create a green roof

By creating a green roof layered with soil and plants on top of your house or garden shed, you not only add natural beauty to a landscape increasingly dominated by concrete and pavement. You also help reduce the urban "heat island" effect, by which cities tend to be several degrees hotter than surrounding areas, and you provide a roof-garden habitat for insects, songbirds and other wildlife.

Water in the garden
Create a water feature in your garden. A pond, ideally without fish, this will enable amphibians and dragonflies to breed.If a pond is not practical, a simple bird bath or pebble fountain will provide a place for animals to drink.

Compost

Recycle your kitchen and garden waste to create compost for the garden.

The compost heap will not only provide you with excellent soil conditioner but will also be home to invertebrates and other animals and this is rich feeding ground for birds and beetles.

Where is the best place to put a compost bin?
It is essential that you keep your compost bin warm and moist.

It's best if you place the bin in the sun and out of the wind, on well drained soil.
To improve drainage and increase access for worms and bacteria, loosen the soil below the bin.
Place a few inches of kitchen waste on the soil at the bottom of the bin.

This will attract worms and bacteria to the bin and increase the rate of compost formation.
For best results, organic waste should be put in the bin in layers of different material between 6-12 cm deep.
Ensure you always put the lid on your compost bin and do not let the compost dry out.

What you can put in your composter

You can compost almost anything that is organic (anything that has been grown).

This includes:
fruit and vegetable scraps
tea bags, coffee grounds
crushed egg shells
grass cuttings, prunings and leaves
small amounts of shredded paper and soft cardboard
animal hair
vacuum dust (only if you have woollen carpets).

The following can not be put into your composter
cat or dog excrement
meat
cheeses
fish
disposable nappies
shiny card
hard objects.
For best results, ensure your compost bin contains some grass cuttings or vegetarian animal manure. They heat up and speed up the composting process. However they should be mixed with other organic waste to avoid slime formation.
To ensure that air is getting to the centre of the bin, turn the material regularly. This will also speed up the decomposition process.
How do you know when the compost is ready?
Your compost is ready for use when the material does not resemble anything that you put in the bin.
Collect the compost from the small hatch at the bottom of the bin. The compost can then be spread on the garden where it will act as a fertiliser.
Recycle Now - low cost compost bins

Bee-hiving ourselves with Project dirt

Project dirt Mark & Nick report

Wow - what an awesome day. We've been busy, out filming with our cameraman Jack. First stop was Devonshire road nature reserve in Forest Hill, SE London.
The Reserve is one of our first projects, and we've been keen to support it for a while now... as well as check out their bees!
It kicked off to a pretty bad start though; no sooner had we set foot on the premises when some of the schoolkids taking some ecology lessons came running into the reserve hut (where Mark and I were kicking back with the first cup of tea for the day) in virtual hysterics - someone had vandalised the bees!

Sure enough when we sprinted down to investigate, the hives were all broken apart and lying strewn around on the ground, with bees swarming everywhere. Clearly the job of several annoying *&£$s! and a pile of large sticks was left behind to show the offending weapons. Iris - the wildlife garden representative called the police. I'd love to say the place was "swarming" with cops within minutes, but then that's because I'm in danger of inheriting my dad's sense of humour.
The police effectively said "Tut tut", let us know if it happens again.

Nonetheless, the hives were rapidly put back together and luckily the swarm had not dispersed and moved on. That's good, because I guess it means the Queen had stayed. Yes, we Brits know that when the Queen flees it's time to haul your ass out but until that moment it's all hands-to-deck. (frankly I wouldn't be moving anywhere either though if I had to lay 20,000 eggs per day). So it meant my fiancee Agnes, our photographer for the day, had to stand well back as she doesn't really like things that buzz!

That having been said, the photos are superb, so go check 'em out!

Iris is a fountain of knowledge, and she kept us entertained with her bee-related facts and colourful language throughout the morning!

Mark couldn't keep his smoker alight, and I kept convincing myself there were bees inside my suit (!),
I think there's a fair way to go for these two city-slickers until we're fully grown apiarists (there, stick with us and you'll learn a new word every day!)

Honey honey honey. Well before today, I'd not have believed it... but I can categorically confirm that London-grown honey fresh from the comb is wicked delicious! If it wasn't for the awkward nature of getting to the bloomin' stuff, I could have chomped the whole lot of it.

A big thankyou to Iris and all the folks at Devonshire Road, what a fantastic inspiration to Londoners you are!

gardening for butterflies

Orange tip

Butterfly food plants

Aubretia, Bugle, Honesty, Sweet Rocket
Caterpillar food plants Arabis, Charlock, Cuckoo Flower, Garlic Mustard, Hedge Mustard, Honesty, Ladies Smock, Watercress

When deciding what to plant it is a good idea to plan ahead throughout the seasons. Layering plants in your garden by season is beneficial because it keeps a constant food source for the butterfly, who become active in Spring and soar on till frost. Layering your garden with Spring bloomers, followed by Summer bloomers and then Autumn bloomers will ensure that the butterflies always will have a lot of choices.

The jagged outline of the Comma's wings is unique among british butterflies.

The comma shaped mark on it's underwing gives it it's name.

A frequent garden visitor, where it is partial to over ripe fruit.

It hibernates in hedges and dense undergrowth, where it blends in beautifully with dried leaves.
Butterfly food plants

Bramble, Budleia, Devil’s-bit Scabious, Sedum spectabile
Caterpillar food plantsCurrant, Elm, Hop, Stinging Nettle

The Importance of Nectar To Butterflies

Even if you're garden is tiny, butterflies will still be attracted to it as long as you have planted suitable nectar plants as it's the nectar from the flowers that supplies the adult butterfly with food. To increase the proliferation of butterflies in your garden, you should plant suitable flowers such as bluebells, dandelions, pansies, primroses, sweet William and wallflowers for spring and if you want to encourage butterflies to stay right through from spring to autumn, in the late summer you should have chrysanthemum, French marigold, forget-me-nots, lavender, mint or honeysuckle etc. In fact, your garden centre will be able to give you plenty of advice of nectar bearing plants of both spring and summer varieties to create a suitable butterfly garden.

BEES AT THE RESERVE

The bees are buzing with the Spring sunshine arriving,

we have placed another hive on the meadow and we will be making brood and super frames very soon

if you are intrested let us know.

We have had a close look at our bees during summer, they have been working hard and there is plenty of brood, but no sign of any honey in the supers. This means we have to give our bees some extra feed for the winter to survive.

Our neighbour Bob who lives close to the reserve is not able to keep bees anymore so he has kindly given all his beekeeping equipment such as a honey extractor, hives and a full hive to us.
During the summer holidays we managed to move Bob's hive to another location where they will be given a winter feed and varoa treatment.

Honey exstractor