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tasty had somehow got wedged in it. I've cleared out plenty of chicken bones from our gutters over the years, dropped there, I think, by crows who have raided gardens where titbits have been left out for cats or foxes.Then it was the jays, three of them

's as high as a squirrel's eye hereabouts.I have to admit that we've been feeding the squirrels recently. My five-year-old delights in chucking out walnuts and peanuts through the cat flap. This has had the side effect that the squirrels have become rather

it will not need to return to the water until March 2011 at the earliest. In the meantime it will come out each night from about March to October and prowl about hunting bugs, slugs and any other small creeping things it can get its jaws around.I always get

.Down on the Rye everything is starting to look very autumnal and the leaves are building up into treacherously slippery mounds. The trees still hold some secrets though. In 1767, a 9- or 10-year-old William Blake saw an oak tree full of angels here. The angel oak

is the most pleasant to work with. It was eminent English physician George Cheyne (1671-1742) who said something along the lines that the Creator had deliberately made horse dung smell so sweet, because he knew that mankind would oft be in its presence. Cow

the ground is warm and moist, will germinate in a couple of weeks and will have a headstart over seeds sown in the colder spring.Grass seedCanesPlastic cupRakeApril - May, September1 weekendJune - AugustSow grass seed at the rate of one-and-a half ounces per

This is the time of year when I go tomato crazy. Suddenly I've gone from eating relatively few tomatoes to buying punnet loads from the shops. There is no doubt that if you go for the British Grown logo on the front of the pack they taste 100

At 11 o'clock in the morning, the bowl of Bob-the-Builder pasta shapes was either a late second breakfast, or an early first lunch - whatever, it was interrupted by the announcement from nearly-three-year-old: "Look, there's a magpie". Sure enough

I'm the proud owner of two whopping great carnivorous plants. One was a present to my son from his granddad, the other is a rescue plant (much like our rescue cat!).Right now my greenhouse is looking decidedly miserable. My pepper and tomato plants

with sunbathing beasts: shieldbugs, spiders, ladybirds, bees, and two cats nestled in at the bottom. The newts have returned to the pond too; four of them were swimming about in there. These are the regular denizens of my garden, but two unusual visitors were a