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leaves from the little apple trees to add, as well as some spent bedding plants from pots at home.The formula is right, now I'll just have to wait a few months for the results!

into the apple tree, but only a minute or two later and it was back. It then started to peck around the handrail and the iron mesh. It spent some time clawing its way up and down the metalwork, and was definitely intent on getting at something.Eventually it flew

of decking near the apple tree, before ambling noisily off through the branches and away. This was the second time this week they were here. Maybe they're nesting nearby.I hear jays more often than I see them, and their angry scrawking call often echoes

of the speckled woods. Their flurry of a whirling jig was taking place under the apple tree, and so engrossed were they in each other that I was able to approach to within 30 cm to watch them closely. It was as if the two butterflies were animated poys

pupating and emerging as an adult. They are usually species of fly or moth, but some are types of beetle or sawfly. There are flies that tunnel through spinach and beetroot, moths that fashion phallic-shaped 'cases' from leaves of apples, beetles that leave

appears to be a change in its foodplant preference from the very restricted box tree to hawthorn, apple, honeysuckle and others. We've got a rather straggling honeysuckle trying to grow over one of our fences, but this specimen was on Clematis armandii

of apple trees, a greenhouse (that sadly got stolen), a wonderful bright yellow tub trug, an orange tree, and an incredibly sharp gardening knife. But I've also received some horrors, one of which was so bad I took it back to the shop and exchanged

were decorated with sparkly cobwebs. On the way back we stopped off to pick up some windfalls from beneath the apple trees, avoiding those already chewed by the fox and muntjac.At lunchtime I sat outside and ate a piece of toast (with home-made apricot

down. There are three of four long-tailed tits in next-door-but-one's pear tree. A female blackbird is scavenging for bits of left-over windfall under our apple tree. The squirrels seem thoroughly fed up with it all, and chatter angrily at each other

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The pebble-sized raspberries that my mum grows, and which my granny used to grow. The tiny fruits are a pain to harvest but their flavour is amazing.
Apples from the gnarled old apple tree that (obviously) came with the garden.
Masses of French beans.
Black